Some thoughts/comparison of travelling from an apartment in Tokyo to Thuringia in Germany, using train vs. plane vs. ship.

• plane
  • train, home/Haneda airport: 1000円/1h/31km/(0,4kg co2)
  • plane, nonstop oneway trip: 1500€/12h/9360km/3822kg co2 (ANA, source)
  • train, FFM/Mühlhausen(Thür): 55€/4h/278km/3.3kg co2 (€ source,km source)
• train/ship, via Peking
  • train Tokyo/Kobe port terminal: 16000円/4h9m/584km/13kg (km source)
  • ship Kobe port terminal/Shanghai: 28000円/47h30min/1470km (once per week, ship)
    • co2: 540kg/960kg, depending on which calculator you ask. ship size etc. are unclear and also influence. (standard, 2 persons cabin, <500 people ship)
  • train Shanghai/Bejing: 10000円/4h30/1317km/68kg (km source, co2: electrified train)
  • transsib Bejing/Moscow
    • 4 bed room, one way: 621€/129h/7573km (€ source, km source)
    • 2 bed room, one way: 1000€/129h
    • co2:
      • 633kg link, assuming Diesel train, 40% filled
      • 164kg link, assuming medium co2 electrical train (unrealistic for transsib), 40% filled)
  • visas transsib route, one way: 284€
  • train Moscow/Mühlhausen: 232€/26h/2128km/178kg (km source, assuming Diesel train)
  • sum oneway: 1560€-1939€ / 222h = 9d8h
• train/ship, via Vladivostok
  • train Tokyo/Sakaiminato: 20450円/8h
  • ship Sakaiminato: ¥33557-¥42104/40h (via Donghae/Korea)
  • transsib Vladivostok/Moscow: $299-$512/9258km/162h ($ source)
  • visas transrussian, one way: £144.23
  • train Moscow/Mühlhausen: 232€/26h/2128km/178kg (km source, assuming Diesel train)
  • sum oneway: 1125€-1391€/9d20h
• freightship
  • train Mühlhausen/Venice: (200€?)/12h/18kg
  • freightship Venice/Shanghai: 4550€/35d/18108km
    • 130€/day, including 3 meals/day link
    • distance as per http://ports.com/sea-route/
    • co2 calculation is hard here
      • cruise ships have just passengers, and relatively high co2 exhaust. For freight, when calculating 200kg (1 person + baggage) transport from Venezia to Shanghai, it seems to result in 40kg(??), source. Looking at all of the freight on the container, and then the 200kg of the passenger. So the 40kg assumes that a passenger is for 35days just like freight, not consuming any energy (laptop, handy), and no energy is used for cooking the 3 meals per day etc.
      • calculating 35days with a cruise ship: at least 3.47t co2
      • calculating with link as freight, 10 to 40 g per km per 1 metric ton, so 36kg to 145kg
  • visa for China: 200€?
  • ship Shanghai/Kobe port terminal: 28000円/47h30min/1470km (once per week, ship)
    • co2: 540kg/960kg, depending on which calculator you ask. ship size etc. are unclear and also influence. (standard, 2 persons cabin, <500 people ship)
  • train Tokyo/Kobe port terminal: 16000円/4h9m/584km/13kg (km source)
• possible methods in the future?
  • Airship (Zeppelin, Cargolifter ), would come out with 55g co2 per km per metric ton of freight
  • rocket (Elon Musk idea), also much co2
  • new train routes?
  • What if there was direct rail Tokyo/Mühlhausen, and 300km/h train? 9669km/32h
• notes
  • train co2 link
  • co2 compensation: 3822kg = 88€ (source)
  • site with nighttrains/ferry: https://www.night-trains.com/asia/tokyo/

• notes: co2 calculations are quite unsharp. Sometimes it seems like one can just compute the scale of the correct result.
• [1] Airlines do for oneway trips assume that one is a business customer, and charge much more. It is cheaper to buy a roundtrip ticket and just use the oneway trip. That is leading to practically same price here.
• [2] For roundtrip, the full visa costs might not apply. I simply assumed again full visa costs.
• [3] This assumes that all connections directly line up after each other, there is no time buffer calculated. If one transport is delayed, that would lead to issues, also requested visa might not work out as expected as the timeframe no longer matches.
• [4] The co2 calculation assumes the person is not causing any co2 output in the 35days travel: no laptop/mobile energy, nothing used for preparing the 3 meals per days, cleaning water for the shower and so on.
• [5] The co2 calculation is assuming the biggest ship (=lowest co2 per person) and biggest cabin size (=lowest co2 per person)

Which prospects might change the travel options for me?

• far fetched
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
  • Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket
• airplane tech
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Celera_500L – plane shipment targeted for 2023-2025. 700km/h speed, higher efficiency than normal turbine planes
  • Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), Airlander 10 should go into service 2025. 7400km range, 250km/s speed.
  • Zeppelin NT (german)
  • Atlas LTA (israel)
• ship north route: several routes are possible for ships. Around Afrika is slowest, through Suez channel quicker, but there is a prospect of ice free north pole: that route would be 60% of the Suez route. Idea from this article.
• Electrified ships becoming feasible: paper
• stats:
  • train near, person transport: 55g/Pkm (gramm per Personenkilometer)
  • train far, person transport: 29g/Pkm
  • car: 143g/Pkm
  • plane: 214g/Pkm