Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
uta999 wrote:Are A and B doing enough R&D on a replacement for the turbofan, using clean electric propulsion?
log0008 wrote:1. Aviation is growing as fast as ever, right now even the take up of electric cars is small and in most cases isn't actually about climate change but other reasons such as the Tesla factor or efficiency. Plus with the majority of our electricity coming from coal anyway its not actually doing much.
In fact i'll go on the record and say that we will have fully autonomous commercial aircraft and direct space flights to the mars before we have electric commercial aircraft.
uta999 wrote:Despite the huge backlog in new orders, particularly NB’s, could the industry actually be facing a 9/11 style depression caused by Climate Change?
People generally could start to think, do I need to fly as often. It won’t happen everywhere , but I can see signs of a shift in attitude towards the environment.
dik909 wrote:uta999 wrote:Are A and B doing enough R&D on a replacement for the turbofan, using clean electric propulsion?
"Clean" electric is a complete myth; that electricity is still generated somewhere via coal, hydro, nuclear, wind power. Just because an electric car/plane puts out no visible exhaust doesn't mean electricity is clean; there is still an environmental impact when the electricity is produced and transported.
As long as we (humans) want to travel without moving, there will be a negative environmental impact.
KFLLCFII wrote:uta999 wrote:Despite the huge backlog in new orders, particularly NB’s, could the industry actually be facing a 9/11 style depression caused by Climate Change?
People generally could start to think, do I need to fly as often. It won’t happen everywhere , but I can see signs of a shift in attitude towards the environment.
I'll start thinking about such things after celebrities decide it's better for the environment to arrange a "carpool" charter on one full-size airliner to head to a major event on the other side of the U.S. (or the globe) rather than taking individual business jets from the same city.
Lilienthal wrote:Overall there are other areas like heating and cooling of homes, transportation by car and generation of electricity where measures concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions make more sense
Dutchy wrote:It isn't, this post is about one of the, if not the most important drivers for our future, becoming clean. Aviation is, of course, a hard nut to crack for all sorts of reason.
zkojq wrote:however the aviation industry overall is very focused on reducing fuel usage (and thus CO2 emissions).
Bricktop wrote:Growing population and increased overall worldwide prosperity are what drives climate change. And air travel growth at the same time. That genie is out of the bottle. We need to go back to a world where only the rich and businessmen can fly, and the peasants stay home and FaceTime. Or we can let the government decide who is flight-worthy. For the good of the planet, of course.
Only an insignificantly small number of people care enough not to take a flight. If it became super-expensive that would change behavior. Millions of jobs would be lost directly and indirectly though. Icelandic fishermen, as an example.
IOW, any aviation slump will not be related to climate change.
Dutchy wrote:zkojq wrote:however the aviation industry overall is very focused on reducing fuel usage (and thus CO2 emissions).
Yes, for an individual flight, but not overall, overall the pollution is raising because of all the added aircraft.
uta999 wrote:...
People generally could start to think, do I need to fly as often. It won’t happen everywhere , but I can see signs of a shift in attitude towards the environment.
log0008 wrote:1. Aviation is growing as fast as ever, right now even the take up of electric cars is small and in most cases isn't actually about climate change but other reasons such as the Tesla factor or efficiency. Plus with the majority of our electricity coming from coal anyway its not actually doing much.
2. Until battery technology moves beyond lithium iron batteries Airbus and Boeing won't even look at it, even at 100% efficiency (0 energy loss) lithium iron batteries weight more than 20x that of fuel per energy unit output.
Pax planes will go electric or 'clean' when every car, every train and every ship is electric or not oil/fuel powered because weight is battery techs biggest enemy and its also aviation biggest enemy
In fact i'll go on the record and say that we will have fully autonomous commercial aircraft and direct space flights to the mars before we have electric commercial aircraft.
StudiodeKadent wrote:No, because climate change is an externality.
The benefit (to themselves) of travel greatly exceed the negative impacts they (personally) will experience from climate change. And even so, how much does one plane ticket really contribute (by itself) to climate change? Not very much. So there's no real benefit unless everyone gives up travel. And since we live in a world where people like to show off their travel on social media, the reality is that there's a positional/status aspect to travel that adds game theory into the equation; you give up travel and you lose status, but by giving up travel you allow others to take advantage of the reduction in demand (and they gain the status).
If you really want to massively cut CO2 emissions, the only viable strategy is nuclear power. Because people aren't going to sacrifice their quality of life.
na wrote:Worst are cargo ships anyway.
uta999 wrote:Despite the huge backlog in new orders, particularly NB’s, could the industry actually be facing a 9/11 style depression caused by Climate Change?
People generally could start to think, do I need to fly as often. It won’t happen everywhere , but I can see signs of a shift in attitude towards the environment.
Are A and B doing enough R&D on a replacement for the turbofan, using clean electric propulsion?
uta999 wrote:Despite the huge backlog in new orders, particularly NB’s, could the industry actually be facing a 9/11 style depression caused by Climate Change?
People generally could start to think, do I need to fly as often. It won’t happen everywhere , but I can see signs of a shift in attitude towards the environment.
Are A and B doing enough R&D on a replacement for the turbofan, using clean electric propulsion?
SomebodyInTLS wrote:
The economic benefits of using renewables is far greater than all the old technologies. WIND AND SOLAR ARE ALREADY CHEAPEST! Nuclear is by far the MOST EXPENSIVE way to generate electricity.
StudiodeKadent wrote:If you really want to massively cut CO2 emissions, the only viable strategy is nuclear power. Because people aren't going to sacrifice their quality of life.
dik909 wrote:"Clean" electric is a complete myth; that electricity is still generated somewhere via coal, hydro, nuclear, wind power.
enilria wrote:StudiodeKadent wrote:If you really want to massively cut CO2 emissions, the only viable strategy is nuclear power. Because people aren't going to sacrifice their quality of life.
Agree 100%. It's ironic that countries are running away from nuclear power when it is the most viable solution in terms of climate.dik909 wrote:"Clean" electric is a complete myth; that electricity is still generated somewhere via coal, hydro, nuclear, wind power.
The environmental impacts of wind power are totally ignored. It's already proven that it affects wind patterns, is bad for birds, and creates a lot of noise. It also requires a staggering amount of human maintenance. The only reason people are able to ignore all these problems is because wind is producing such a tiny % of our electricity needs. If it was providing even 30% of our power needs these would become grave problems.
catiii wrote:No. There will be a carbon tax levied upon airlines, who will then pass such taxes on to the consumer in the way everything gets passed on to the consumer.
airportugal310 wrote:Business people will always need to travel, particularly when large sums of money are on the proverbial "table". Climate change is not going to be something that gets in their way.
Vacationers worldwide will always want to visit places they've always wanted to go: holidays, Golden Weeks, Memorial Days, Hajj, Hawaii...you name it.
Don't see it happening. Personal 'want' will overtake/trump climate change (e.g. something that likely won't cause them a headache within their own lifetime)
My $.02
Lilienthal wrote:Transportation of people and goods is just too important of an economic factor for extensive measures against air travel.
blockski wrote:enilria wrote:StudiodeKadent wrote:If you really want to massively cut CO2 emissions, the only viable strategy is nuclear power. Because people aren't going to sacrifice their quality of life.
Agree 100%. It's ironic that countries are running away from nuclear power when it is the most viable solution in terms of climate.dik909 wrote:"Clean" electric is a complete myth; that electricity is still generated somewhere via coal, hydro, nuclear, wind power.
The environmental impacts of wind power are totally ignored. It's already proven that it affects wind patterns, is bad for birds, and creates a lot of noise. It also requires a staggering amount of human maintenance. The only reason people are able to ignore all these problems is because wind is producing such a tiny % of our electricity needs. If it was providing even 30% of our power needs these would become grave problems.
Those are all big debates for society as a whole, but not particularly germane to aviation. It also doesn't make sense to say that 'clean' electricity is a myth. Obviously some forms are much cleaner than others.
There's a big push to electrify all sorts of transportation, but the energy density required for flight makes any of the existing electricity storage options infeasible. That means zero-carbon aviation will depend on either some fantastic breakthrough in batteries/capacitors for energy storage; a similar breakthrough in biofuels; or the realization that you cannot stop emitting carbon in this sector - meaning the research must focus on some method of negative carbon emissions via carbon capture.
The good news is that carbon capture obviously has a much broader application than just aviation.
atcsundevil wrote:This isn't a climate change debate, it's a discussion on whether possible climate change may impact aviation. If this turns into a non aviation debate over the existence of climate change, the thread will be locked, and users may be warned or banned for not staying on topic. Let's not forget that this is an aviation forum.
✈️ atcsundevil
WeatherPilot wrote:catiii wrote:No. There will be a carbon tax levied upon airlines, who will then pass such taxes on to the consumer in the way everything gets passed on to the consumer.
Which is why such taxes are stupid. The money just goes to balance the deficit or other social programs or pet projects of the politicians instead of addressing climate change like they say it’s for.
WeatherPilot wrote:catiii wrote:No. There will be a carbon tax levied upon airlines, who will then pass such taxes on to the consumer in the way everything gets passed on to the consumer.
Which is why such taxes are stupid. The money just goes to balance the deficit or other social programs or pet projects of the politicians instead of addressing climate change like they say it’s for.
MIflyer12 wrote:atcsundevil wrote:This isn't a climate change debate, it's a discussion on whether possible climate change may impact aviation. If this turns into a non aviation debate over the existence of climate change, the thread will be locked, and users may be warned or banned for not staying on topic. Let's not forget that this is an aviation forum.
✈️ atcsundevil
Sticking to that question, and the OP's line of inquiry...
It depends on how CO2 pricing is implemented in aviation. It's too big a sector to be ignored forever. If CO2 taxes increase fares by more than 10%, yes, there will be a demand inflection. One ton of jet fuel = 3.15 tons of CO2. Look at a prospective Canadian tax of CDN$ 32/ton of CO2 for 2022.
na wrote:Air Travel is the toughest when it comes to change to environmental friendly technologies, the longer the routing the tougher. But I expect a slump when it comes to shorthaul flights. Businessmen around me more and more take the train. Emergencies aside, you normally don´t need to fly when you´re travelling distances under 500 km.
What I expect pretty soon is a tax on aviation fuel or a mandatory CO2 compensation surcharge for each flight.
DolphinAir747 wrote:Aviation is still a smaller contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change than meat and dairy production. Perhaps better to tackle that area first.