How bad is flying, really?
So Boeing is unveiling a flying wing, and an MIT / Cambridge design team has a similar design for a silent, fuel efficient passenger jet. In the latter case, the fuel efficiency was a serendipitous side-effect of noise reduction.
Both promise fuel efficiencies, per passenger, similar to a Prius seating two people: 120 passenger miles per gallon. And they claim to do so by increasing efficiency by about 20 percent.
This made me stop and think. If a normal plane is getting 100 passenger miles per gallon, how bad can it really be? If you do a carbon footprint calculation, you’ll note that air travel is a big component of your footprint. But it’s precisely because you travel so far in a plane. It turns out that driving to california would put out roughly the same amount of CO2 as flying.
However, there are a few things that make flying a bit worse. From the Guardian:
- Contrails, those vapor streams that planes leave in the stratosphere, may have a huge impact on global warming.
- The availability of air travel spurs more travel. If going to Sydney required a week on trains and cruiseships, you’d probably just visit the koalas at the local zoo and call it a day.
- Planes sometimes fly empty, in which case you’re burning carbon like a Texan pyromaniac.
So, if the trip is important and the flight is full, rest easy. If not, you can buy carbon offsets or help a little old lady across the street. At any rate, guilt is a sucky way to change behavior. When the governments of the world can agree on a carbon credit scheme, it’ll be a lot easier to weigh the pros and cons of any given trip, because it will be reflected in the price. And maybe then, some of these concept designs will become reality. Because saving the planet is all well and good, but saving money gets people off their asses.
