As the FT notes this morning:
European aviation faces more than €800bn in extra costs to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to industry estimates that highlight the challenge facing the sector as it decarbonises.
As they added:
The industry has committed to hitting net zero carbon emissions through a mix of new technologies, notably alternative fuels, as well as carbon offsets and more efficient aircraft, engines and air traffic management.
This is according to a new plan they have, apparently, published this morning.
Please forgive my cynicism but I do not believe them.
There is no evidence that carbon offsets work.
I doubt that significant changes in fuel to save carbon in aircraft are possible.
And I seriously doubt better air traffic management is going to save a lot unless the number of planes in the air declines dramatically and stacking before landing disappears.
This is, in my opinion, an industry in denial. Mass flying and net zero carbon are incompatible. The age of globe-trotting to find the sun is over, and that is what around 90% of all flying is about. We either come to terms with this, or we destroy the chances of human life on earth.
If I never fly again, I will be happy. Not only is there no fun in flying, but the cost is far too high. The result is that in my opinion airlines are carbon insolvent: they will never raise enough funding to make themselves carbon neutral and so cannot survive.
A poll:
Should we come to terms with the end of flying for most purposes?
- Yes. The survival of life in earth demands it. (42%, 184 Votes)
- Yes, and we need to recognise that airlines are carbon insolvent. (32%, 142 Votes)
- I'm abstaining, but show me the results anyway (12%, 51 Votes)
- No, because technology will solve this. (8%, 34 Votes)
- No. We need to travel to broaden our horizons and sun tans. (7%, 30 Votes)
Total Voters: 441
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It is, perhaps, rather pessimistic think flying has to stop.
There are already small commercial aircraft that are electric. These are only suitable short haul. There is rapid development of battery technology with significantly higher energy density than lithium ion and perhaps this might make longer haul flights possible.
Perhaps, more practically, a mixture of (green) ammonia and hydrogen might be used. Apparently there are engine developments that may make this retrofittable to existing engines.
It is interesting to note that ammonia might also be useful as a replacement for bunker oil in freight shipping. I believe one large container ship is already fuelled this way.
It is too early to give up on commercial flying.
I think there are better lives to lead
You may be interested in:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/amp/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betting-big-on-ammonia-2652903539
We should hope that there are ways to decarbonise flying. Whilst many may agree that there are better lives to live I doubt that will convince the many who already fly. Simply saying we can’t fly is likely to lose the argument, even if true.
Ammonia may not be the only or best, solution. But, if made from renewable energy, the combustion products of ammonia and hydrogen are nitrogen (80% of the atmosphere) and water (there’s already at lot of rain!).
Perhaps, as an engineer, I am more optimistic about engineering solutions. 🙂
Tell me why we need to fly?
Tell me how warming will be prevented by the process you describe?
Making green ammonia using solar power, then burning, it releases zero net carbon. I’m not talking about making ammonia using fossil fuels.
So ammonia fueled air travel need not cause carbon dioxide release or global warming.
Note also that we have to make green ammonia for fertilizer (though, perhaps less than we currently do). So ammonia production is needed whether we use it for aviation or not.
And, of course, there are more ways to skin a cat than just this route to green(er) aviation.
There are people calling for the UK to expand its embassy staff in Tunisia to process UK asylum applications there. The idea being to stop the migrants dangerously crossing the English channel and the Mediterranean and enriching smugglers and leaving plastic waste as they do. If entitled to asylum in the UK they would then travel a few thousand km back to their origin country to collect their family and belongings.
And then travel together to the UK.
By truck and train presumably.
With minds like these wanting to guide our lives we are doomed. Doomed, I tell ya.
I abstained on this vote, and here is why. I come from a family of weird mixed internationalities. Mother Australian; Now she is dead and all her siblings, I no longer visit, as I am occupied flying elsewhere , because the next generation, ie my son, married to an Argentinian, lives in Argentina. What am I supposed to do ? If I did not fly to Argentina every January I would not see my son and five grandchildren. Growing up in the the 50s and 60s I only saw my Oz grandparents three times after we left Australia in 1955, and this always was a very sad gap in my life and consequently I make this effort to physically see my grandchildren once a year.
This is certainly no easy trip, 30 hours door to door. I live in Galicia Spain now, and fly to Uk about every 18 months to visit my daughter, and vice versa for her. What are we supposed to do ?? I think you are looking at this flying problem through the wrong lenses , and have not thought through some of the unintended consequences of your anti flying stance.
I lived in mid Norfolk for near 40 years, and was constantly bombarded by the noise of low flying military planes; when the the Military Industrial Complex stops the evil of their emissions , and the world of the private jet is abolished, etc etc ,then I might look at reducing my flying.
Meanwhile like others above, I do believe an alternative to fossil fuels for flight will be found, and firmly believe that with better organisation the inefficiencies of the industry could save huge amounts of wasted fuel. (But yes, flying to the the frivolous hen party in Amsterdam is just plain daft!)
I appreciate all the consequences
But I strongly suspect we will not survive flying
And if we do it must be rationed. Family conditions would be a criteria for increasing the ration.
There are two main routes to de-carbed flying
(off-sets ain’t one of them – this route was discredited by 2014 via the UN’s “Clean Development Mechanism” – CDMs – which was gamed by mostly Chinese companies)
1. biofuels – derived from vegetation either grown specifically (rape seed) or rotted surplus (EU produces circa 250mt per year of crop residues).
2. synthetic fuel with green H2 at its base.
The problem with No 1 is that there is a queue for biofuels e.g. Germans are keen to keep their ICE business on the road – literally – & biofools (sic) is one way to do this. This raises questions about availability for flying.
The problem with No 2 is that turning green H2 into, for example synthetic methane (via methanation) means that you lose 50% of the H2 (3H2+Co2 = CH4+H2O). This is a reality of the process not amenable to change (or being engineered out). We can produce Green H2 at parity with Nat Gas (on a kWh basis) now. Turning the stuff into synthetic CH4 would double the price (although the business case “works” provided a subsidy is provided via, e.g. the UK’s RTFO)..
The alternative is to use H2 directly in the aircraft. Gas turbines are not the limiting factor, most modern turbines – with a change to the gas train and burner cans – can burn 100% H2 right now. The problem in aviation is storing the H2.
I’m not offering a point of view btw – the above are realities. Its possible that short-haul (intra-Europe) could be made zero-carbon using H2, long haul seems beyond reach.
There is an argument for long distance business travel – but this has been eroded by good quality teleconf (having one with Japan next week)..
Of course what could (should?) happen is a collective pulling of heads out of backsides and a recognition that in Europe long-distance train-travel if properly organised could be fast and low carbon. Sadly, this is not the case at the moment – for example, although there is a high speed link from Bruxelles via liege & Aachen to Koln the trains are regularly cancelled – suggesting that the English disease of being unable to operate a railway system (despite having invented the bloody thing) has spread to Deutsche(sometimes)Bahn. In the case of price – I will pass over that subject in silence & refer readers of this family orientated blog to “Cheap-Flights” by Fascinating Aida.
Thanks
There are a lot of things that are now over.
Cars (especially diesels), scooters and motorbikes (we’ve made huge mistakes in public transport in this country since the 1950’s).
Eating fish – it’s just not sustainable anymore.
The ivory trade – there’s not much of any animals left with ivory grade horns/tusks – we’re now at the bottom of the barrel.
Big game hunting – we’re down to about 20,000 lions and slightly more giraffes in the whole African continent and all the best breeding animals are being shot and made into rugs for the rich dicks who think it’s fun.
Digging up the Amazon and other rainforests – more palm oil anyone?
But as long as these things are attractive to people, or markets continue to make them so, they will be retained to the bitter end. Did you see the queues at the airports for Easter?
I honestly think if you curbed flying people would actually riot – more so than what they would do over the destruction of the NHS.
Sorry to be cynical but there’s nowt so queer as folk it seems.
You may be right on flying
After the NHS the right to fly to the sun is for some the next thing to a religion
And the unacceptability of stopping flying is why we need a pragmatic decarbonised solution. And such solutions are possible.
I read recently that private jet flights are at an all time high and at that extreme, the planet’s richest are firing themselves into space for fun.
You can hardly blame the working family wanting to jet off to the sun when the example being set is so poor.
We’re doomed.
At the moment many poor working families are claiming benefits as they do not have enough to live on. They are not jetting off to the sun.
Presenting the moral argument will not fix it. Slavery was not ended by Britain through the moral argument; it was ended by compensating the slave owners with a massive national debt borrowing operation, and the issue of bonds (c.1835, redeemed 2015); it did very little to improve the life of the manumitted slaves. The moral argument can change cultural attitudes, to some degree; but it virtually never fixes the problem.
Solutions are different. In my opinion the critical issue is finding the prosaic, real working solution; usually new technology, or economic advantage from different opportunities, which is not morally uplifting, but removes the apparent worst of the blight.
True – moral arguments will just persuade the already persuaded, and ‘we’re all doomed’ arguments too often lead to paralysis – or let’s just party whilst we can. From time spent running organisational change programmes, there was said to be a sweet spot between fear and complacency. Most of the arguments are at either extreme. (Even if I personally do think that we are getting towards all being doomed).
Teleworking might be a bit of an example. In the 90’s I did too much long distance travel. Contrary to popular rumour it was not a lot of fun and not good for your health or family life, and we would use the technology that was available at the time whenever possible. Covid has been a game changer in that people have realised that they really can work effectively from home, as have most organisations. It’s now a case of working out how to deal with the downsides. Behaviour has changed quite radically and quickly, using technology that was already there, and has improved further to meet demand (Zoom etc).
Not quite sure what will precipitate the changes needed – I’m not really wishing for another ‘plague’, a war or dictatorship. And Im not quite sure how to deal with those desperate for summer sun – virtual reality and an infra red lamp..?!
The end of flying means the end of the tourist industry. You can travel by train or car to the alpine ski slopes, it is true, and to the Spanish costas and the Alagarve, but the journey is longer, and currently, the number of trains running from Britain or Northern Europe is wholly inadequate for the massive increase in land journeys tht would take place, and electric road vehicles are simply not suited to the long distances involved in journeying to these destinations. It is virtually impossible to travel quickly to the Greek islands, or Nile cruises in Egypt, or the beaches of North Africa, or to Thailand, or to Miami, or Nepal or Sri lanks or Goa. These places are heavily depndent on the touris industry. The end of flying means the end of, or drastikc reduction of, trekking in the Himalaya, visits to Disneyland in Florida, skiing in Switzerland, sunbaathing on the beaches of the Mediterranean, visits to relatives in Melbourne and Sidney. What will happen to the economies of Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Greek islnds, Switzerland, Florida, all so heavily dependent on sunseekers and beach addicts and piste junkies? And meantime, Cornwall and the Lake District and the likes will be turned into heaving nature deplete wildernesses of seaside villas and tent and caravan filled campsites with vastly increased rates of sewage discharge into the sea.
Welcome to reality
We have lived by abusing our planet
Cruises on the Nile are part of that
We change, or leave our children to die
Which do you choose?
Plenty of experts believe that technological advances will lead to net zero aircraft being viable – Porsche’s investment in synthetic fuels has already shown the way for cars.
What is your expertise that allows you to disagree with genuine experts?
If it was possible the industry would say so
The report I linked to refers to offsets and much else
They clearly do not believe it possible
My skill is in appraising evidence
What is yours?
If we carry on as we are, those places won’t have a tourist industry anyway. Peter Kalmus the NASA climate scientist has said if you look up and see planes flying you know the climate emergency isn’t being treated as an emergency.
How is it reasonable to argue on the one hand that technical advances in aviation propulsion will, at some point in the future, solve the problem, and contrast that with the current situation for other forms of public transport? Resources would surely be much better used on improving rail, bus and active travel, and changing hearts and minds, than consumed in pursuit of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We don’t have time to wait and hope.
Surely we should stop all motorised transport as non are carbon neutral and that includes electric power after the environmental effects of mining of the commodities involved in battery manufacture and the decommissioning costs.. Where do you want to draw the line?
Survival
Not much to ask, is it?
I agree! Let’s push for a ban on all motorised transport..
I did not go that far
Clearly that is not possible or desirable
Although we could start with SUVs
The fuels we are using up were laid down many millions of years ago.
What is the sustainable planning to replace them?
The power station at Drax is burning young trees faster than they can grow and transporting that fuel from North America to Yorkshire.
Fuel will be needed to power the manufacture and transportation of materials required to have a sustainable future.
Suvs around my area are often inhabited by one person after the school drop off, spending time in the queue to do the drop off, sometimes over 500 metres on each side of the local school.
Seems children can no longer walk to school.
Being too negative will just dissuade people from trying to do anything that might make a difference. Even a horse and cart has CO2 emissions, but there is a hierarchy of harm and it must help if people are encouraged to choose the less damaging options.
There seem to be two main issues when trying to reduce flying:
(1) Aviation is hugely tax-advantaged, which means people don’t consider other options for financial reasons. At the very least there should be a level playing field but that would need international agreement, and I have no idea how it could be achieved. However Richard has had some success with international tax policy in the past, so might have some ideas. For us in the UK almost all flights involve two countries so a unilateral national approach would be difficult, though things might look different in large countries like Australia or the USA where internal flights are a bigger sector.
(2) There simply hasn’t been strategic planning towards making alternatives viable. For those living in London they can get to several major European cities by direct train (Eurostar) with travel times not very different from flying once travel to and from airports and check-in/baggage-reclaim times are taken into account. There are also limited holiday options (direct to the Alps in winter, the Mediterranean in summer). For the rest of the country the comparison makes no sense, there are regional airports but no train services without a cumbersome change in London. The only serious rail investment outside London (HS2) seems to have ignored the possibility of enabling direct travel abroad via the Channel Tunnel and providing a viable alternative to flying. (And in London, the main recent investment was Crossrail, whose only obvious justification was providing the access infrastructure to support a third Heathrow runway).
The only answer to that one is having sensible governments, over long periods of time, prepared to act strategically in the national interest. Unfortunately we don’t seem to be presented with that democratic alternative when it comes to general elections.
Restoring forest cover over significant areas of the world is a highly worthwhile aim in itself to maintain the planet (my current reading is “A Trillion Trees” by Fred Pearce) but should not be allowed to become confused with reducing the carbon impact of transport.
Attempting to continue air transport by making hydrogen-powered aircraft is a complete techno-fantasy for any large-scale immediate use. Rolls Royce is developing a jet engine using hydrogen produced by the European Marine Centre in the Orkneys. The hydrogen has to be liquefied by reducing the temperature to -253 c and stored in containers that take up to 4 times the space of conventional fuel. Completely new aircraft will have to be made and a massive new infrastructure for hydrogen production. This will take decades and far too late to be effective and the development itself will use vast quantities of fossil fuels with all the concrete, steel etc needed. Investment on this scale would be far more effectively used in a massive insulation and energy conservation programme otherwise we are all doomed.
If there was a reasonable transition for the employees, say for example a green job guarantee, I know alot of people who would jump ship.
The industry is in a deep dive to the bottom. Covid provided all the leverage they needed to decimate Ts and Cs.
Of course a JG doesn’t fit the neoliberalism ideology of sunak or starmer
*We*, who are probably among the wealthiest people in the world have the following choice:
A We can collectively reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions *massively and rapidly* [this will be exceptionally difficult and require a huge reorganisation of the way they live].
Or B We can continue to live the way we do at present – perhaps making gestural sacrifices such as with our method of travel or home heating but without the disruption of Option A.
By choosing Option B, we will:
First, prevent most future generations from having a reasonable chance of living healthy productive lives and …
Second, continue to generate widespread deaths and destruction in Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, Pacific islands etc. (This is happening now but our ‘news’ outlets mostly consider these ‘negative’ items and not necessary to be reported. Such ‘news’ might not attract advertisers. Watch some TV on Al Jazeera.)
Third, continuing on the path we are on will mean having to cope with thousands perhaps millions, of refugees. Professor James Lovelock (of Gaia Hypothesis fame) said ‘billions will die’.
This second option appears to still be available to most wealthy people at present but some of our number have already had their lives totally devastated by floods, fires, droughts and winds such as cyclones and hurricanes. Some industries are already doomed (skiing, some tourism, farming – and vineyards – in places now too hot, too dry or too wet etc.)
There does not appear to be a third option.
Deborah Booth commented ‘If I did not fly to Argentina … I would not see my son and five grandchildren’ – a totally natural reaction. But if she was convinced that continued global heating was likely to cause her family to be embroiled and possibly obliterated by situations that are a result of flyers like herself … I expect she might change her mind.
So, consider the start of WW2. The rich had their cars, big houses, cruises, travel, wealth. Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax wanted to negotiate with Hitler to maintain all of that.
It cannot have been popular, in May 1939, for Chamberlain to introduce compulsory military service for single men aged 20 to 22 years. With the declaration of war, that became all men aged 18 – 41. Churchill extended that to men aged 18 – 51 and women of 20 – 30. Then there was serious rationing.
It was dreadful for those countries occupied by Nazi forces. But what the world faces now is incomparably more serious … billions might die.
We were losing the war in 1940. Churchill’s rhetoric informed the British people.
Currently, there are British people willing to speak the truth. Richard Murphy for one. Gary Lineker for another.
Folks,
Getting to this one a bit late… But thought helpful to consider ‘how big’ and ‘how distorted’ aspects.
I saw this the other day: “Aviation is responsible for 3 to 5% of the European Union’s total greenhouse gas emissions and more than 2% of global emissions” — from slide 7 of [https://www.sesarju.eu/sites/default/files/documents/events/Introduction%20to%20Module%202_ESA_final.pdf]. This seemed low given my expectation … so worth checking. Now aviation also contributes more than just the greenhouse gases – I believe that the particulates in atmosphere roughly doubles the effective contribution (needs checking).
Let’s also examine market distortions: Aviation doesn’t pay taxes on fuel (international), typically doesn’t pay for the radio spectrum used. International regulatory control on Aviation (ICAO, ITU) are not economic or environmental. This “distorts the market” compared to alternative methods of transport such as trains.
Accepting the above at face value means two things:
– Whilst aviation is ‘bad’ for the environment — it is probably not the worst culprit (at the moment). There is probably an argument that we should stockpile high specific energy density fuel (like oil) for flying — but save it for the special things that only planes can do in the future (and holidays and ego trips don’t cut it).
– Aviation is being encouraged to make things worse in the short term because of its preferential and exceptional treatment (exemption from taxes, costs and constraints imposed on other industries). Maybe in the UK, this stems from post war airforce hero-worship. But this needs to be corrected.
In the meantime, it is difficult to blame minimum wage someone wanting an escape to jump on RyanAir to the sun … but requiring to pay the true economic and environmental cost for this would reduce much demand. The consequential increase for the reduced demand by the wealthy remainder would maybe dissuade much of that too. Managing that transition and reasonable alternative means of transport – that’s the role of a competent government. Now, I’m sure I saw one of those sometime ………….