Airlines - just 2% of the carbon emission problem? #airlines #greenhouse

There's a great article here in the EthicalCorp magazine that touches upon much of what is wrong with the airline industry and how it shapes up to solve some of the issues, especially the carbon-waste problem. However there is much more under the surface that needs to be thought through too. It's a bit like the car industry, in that just one variable - fuel use - gets the focus. So we tend to get bogged down in semantics about fuel efficiency per seat and forget about the bigger picture.

As with road traffic, air traffic demands that a vehicle is built from a diverse set of raw materials; that substantial (often public) infrastructure is laid on for these vehicles and that whole sub-industries are developed in support of designing, researching, testing, maintaining and operating these vehicles. There are specialist mechanics, training institutes, designers and builders. There are airports and terminals, hangars and hardstanding. It's an awful lot of concrete, aluminium and steel, much of it brought to site by carbon fuels and smelted by carbon-emitting energy... so when you add up the consequential emissions they are far, far greater than the simple fuel emission. (Not forgetting also that aircraft disperse much of their fuel-based carbon output at altitude, not just at ground level, and spread it around unlike any other form of transport.)

But as is the case for road transport we choose to look only at the variable - our fuel load. Now this clearly is a better bet for the airlines than it is for the car makers - airlines at least want to maximise operating profit and are under constant pressure to maximise passenger and freight loadings. Unlike a private car user, no airline wants to fly empty airliners around just for fun. And it is important to minimise fuel use, anyway. But we never seem to want to address the remainder - the infrastructure. We turn a blind eye to it because in our hearts and minds we want big, bustling airports, we like to travel, and we like new planes better than the old ones. Overall, we like to get somewhere - anywhere - quicker rather than slower. And planes fit the bill.

Or do they? If carbon emissions truly matter, both as a contribution to climate change and to acidification of our oceans, perhaps we need to question everything - from aviation to fast trains, from private cars to bicycles - and be prepared to make some really big changes. Until we get serious about it we are just playing around the edges.

Well this is no surprise really - peak oil by design

Peak oil? Well the oil-rich Middle-East woke up in 1973 and discovered the power of restricted supply, and once they opened that particular magic lamp they have used it ever since. It's fairly clear - and eminently logical - that if there is a limited resource and wild demand that the suppliers are in the box seat. In the case of oil we have seen a deliberate slow down in production, a restriction in supply, that has forced the price up. Indeed we now see that some oil fields have been left untapped, for future use. Which is sensible, of course, but does impose another restrictor on peak production.

Now this creates a more controlled stream of wealth for the oil exporters, which is what they need. They don't want to give the stuff away, or pump it out too quickly and create a glut. So they restrict supply. Now back in 1973 this was a sharp shock for the oil-desperate, now it's more like a blunt weapon. The answer for the consumers is to look at alternatives, but they all carry costs. Ethanol creation relies on a wasteful method of production and robs us of food. Solar is largely inefficient, useless at night, dependent on weather and locale and consumes enormous areas of land. Wind farms suffer similar constraints. Geo thermal and tidal generation requires specific locations, usually far distant from the consumers. And nuclear is just plain scary to most people. Hydrogen? Yes, well, we all want to see it happen but the problems of storage and distribution are horrendous.

Now we can fix these problems, but we haven't had the will to do so. And the suppliers have let us have enough of that powerfully addictive black gold to keep the price too low to encourage the development of alternatives. I think "sucked in" in one way of putting it. (And I don't blame the oil exporters at all - it's plain enough we'd all do the same.)

Have a read of this:“King Abdullah's remarks reflect the new thinking in the Middle East, where the Kuwaiti parliament has also expressed a need to stabilize oil exports. Higher oil prices enable producers to focus more on domestic investments than on increasing exports. All Gulf countries have seen huge growth in domestic demand for power and fuel. By 2015, Iran may consume as much of its crude oil as they export. The King’s remarks mean that we in the industrialized countries better start looking for other solutions.”

Now get back in your gas-guzzling cars and rage against the cost of gas at the pump. As I said, sucked in.