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Choose Your Speed

How does the cost of a container ship traveling between Florida and the United Kingdom
change as the speed of the ship changes?

Background
In the Quest Kick-Off, you found the distance between two cities of Bristol and Miami and the
distance of a round-trip journey between them. Now you will determine the most cost-efficient
speed for a ship making this crossing.
Fuel, in the form of diesel, is a major expense for a shipping company. Diesel fuel contains
more energy per liter than gasoline, but it is more expensive than gasoline. In addition to the
expense, the diesel fuel used by most container ships releases a lot more sulfur than other fuels
when it burns. Sulfur compounds in the atmosphere can cause smog and acid rain, which are
forms of pollution. A container ship might use hundreds of metric tons of diesel fuel on each day
of its journey. A metric ton is equal to 1,000 kilograms.
The shipping company you work for usually allows nine days for its container ships to travel
from Miami to Bristol. You’ve been asked to determine if shortening the travel time by increasing
the speed of a ship would be cost efficient. When a ship travels faster, it will reach its
destination sooner, but it will also have to burn more fuel to move faster. So, you need to
determine if the fuel efficiency—that is, the amount of fuel burned per kilometer traveled—
increases, decreases, or remains the same if a ship goes faster.
One way to determine how the fuel efficiency of a ship changes with speed is to calculate the
ship’s fuel efficiency at various speeds and compare the answers. Fuel efficiency measures how
much fuel is needed to travel one kilometer. You can use the graph “Fuel Consumption vs.
Speed” to calculate fuel efficiency. It shows how the daily use of fuel varies with the size and
speed of the container ship.
For example, suppose you want to find how much fuel per kilometer a small container ship uses
when it travels at 38 km/hr. First, find the curve on the graph for the small container ship. Then,
read the rate of fuel consumption that applies to a speed of 38 km/hr. According to the graph,
the rate of fuel consumption at this speed is 90 tons/day. To find the fuel efficiency, divide the
rate of fuel consumption by the speed, as shown in Step 2 below. (Note: In order to use units
correctly in Step 2, you must first convert hours to days, as shown in Step 1.)
Step 1: Convert fuel use (tons/hour) to fuel use (tons/day)
Fuel Use (tons/hour) = Fuel Use (tons/day) × 1 day/24 hours
Fuel Use (tons/hour) = 90 tons/day × 1 day/24 hours
Fuel Use (tons/hour) = 3.75 tons/hour
Step 2: Calculate fuel efficiency
Fuel Efficiency = Fuel Use (tons/hour) / Speed (km/hr)
Fuel Efficiency = (3.75 tons/hour) / (38 km/hr)
Fuel Efficiency = 0.10 tons/km

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Therefore, a small container ship traveling at 38 km/hr uses 0.10 tons of fuel for every kilometer
it travels.

In the questions below, you will compare fuel efficiencies for different sized container ships
traveling at different speeds. This comparison will help you to decide whether having container
ships travel at faster speeds will save your company money.

Analyze and Interpret Data

Use the graph “Fuel Consumption vs. Speed” to answer these questions.

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1. Describe Patterns Look at the lines on the graph for the small, medium, and large
container ships.
a. What patterns do you observe in the values of the daily fuel consumption as the size of
the ship increases?

b. Why do you think a large ship traveling at a particular speed uses more fuel than a
small ship traveling at the same speed?

2. Calculate Use the graph to answer the following questions.

a. How many tons of fuel does a small container ship traveling at 30 km/hr use to travel
1 km? Show your work. (Hint: Use the equation for fuel efficiency that is given in the
Background section.)

b. How many tons of fuel does a small container ship traveling at 44 km/hr use to travel
1 km? Show your work.

c. Look at your answers to Questions 2a and 2b. How does the fuel efficiency of a small
container ship traveling at 30 km/hr compare to the fuel efficiency of a small ship
traveling at 44 km/hr?

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3. Calculate Use the graph to answer the following questions.

a. How many tons of fuel does a medium-sized container ship traveling at 30 km/hr use to
travel 1 km? Show your work.

b. How many tons of fuel does a medium-sized container ship traveling at 44 km/hour use
to travel 1 km? Show your work.

c. Look at your answers to Questions 3a and 3b. How does the fuel efficiency of a
medium-size container ship traveling at 30 km/hr compare to the fuel efficiency of a
medium-size container ship traveling at 44 km/hr?

4. Calculate Use the graph to answer the following questions.

a. How many tons of fuel does a large container ship traveling at 30 km/hr use to travel
1 km? Show your work.

b. How many tons of fuel does a large container ship traveling at 44 km/hr use to travel
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1 km? Show your work.

c. Look at your answers to Questions 4a and 4b. How does the fuel efficiency of a large
container ship traveling at 30 km/hr compare to the fuel efficiency of a large container
ship traveling at 44 km/hr?

5. Use Mathematical Relationships Review your answers to the previous questions.

a. How is fuel efficiency related to the speed of a container ship?

b. How is fuel efficiency related to ship size? (Hint: Review your answers to Questions 2c,
3c, and 4c.)

6. Use Equations In the Quest Kick-Off, you found the distance between Miami and Bristol.
Use that distance to answer the following questions.
a. How much fuel will a small container ship traveling at 30 km/hr need to make the
journey between Miami and Bristol? (Hint: Multiply the distance from Miami to Bristol by
the fuel efficiency you determined in Question 2a.)

b. How much fuel will a small container ship traveling at 44 km/hr need to make the journey?

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c. How much fuel will a large container ship traveling at 30 km/hr need to make the journey?

d. How much fuel will a large container ship traveling at 44 km/hr need to make the journey?

e. Look at your answers to Questions 6a, 6b, 6c, and 6d. Suppose your shipping company
wants to use as little fuel as possible in its ships. Also suppose the ships must travel
between 30 and 44 km/hr. Describe the ship size and ship speed you would
recommend for the journey. Explain your answer.

7. Use Equations Fuel efficiency is one important factor shipping companies take into
account when determining how fast they would like their ships to travel. Why? Because the
higher the fuel efficiency, the less fuel a ship uses. And the less fuel a ship uses, the lower
the cost that the shipping company has to pay for fuel.
However, fuel efficiency is not the only factor when deciding how fast a ship should travel.
The amount of time the ship takes to complete its journey is also important. Your shipping
company needs its ships to complete the journey from Miami to Bristol in 9 days, or
216 hours. Calculate the average speed of a ship that travels from Miami to Bristol in this
timeframe. (Note: Average speed = total distance / total time.)

8. Reason Quantitatively Use the table below and the graph on fuel use to calculate the
total cost of the journey described in Question 7. Assume that the container ship is large.

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Overhead costs, including crew salaries, $20,000 per day

insurance, maintenance, and food and other
supplies

Fuel costs $600 per metric ton

a. Overhead cost for 9 days:

b. Fuel use per day:

c. Cost of fuel for 9 days:

d. Total cost of the voyage:

9. Reason Quantitatively Look at your answer to Question 8. To shorten the duration of

the container ship’s voyage to Bristol, your manager suggests increasing the average
speed of the container ship to 36 km/hr. Calculate the length of time the journey to Bristol
will take. Then apply the same steps that you followed in Question 4 to calculate the total
cost of the journey.
Time of journey travelling at 36 km/hr: _________________

a. Overhead cost for _____ days:

b. Fuel use per day:

c. Cost of fuel for _____ days:

d. Total cost of the voyage:

10. Analyze Costs Compare the costs of the container ship traveling at the two speeds. How
does traveling at the faster speed affect the cost of the journey?

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Quest Follow-Up
As your calculations show, the total cost of the journey of a container ship depends on its average
speed of travel.

1. Construct an Explanation Write an e-mail to your manager describing your findings and
your recommendations for the average speed of the container ship.

2. Connect to the Environment Suppose that an official at the shipping company argues
that the journey from Miami to Bristol should last at most 8 days instead of 9 days. How
would this change affect the air pollution that the ship’s journey would cause? Cite
evidence from the Background section and your calculations to support your answer.

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