13 ms·

Airlines Embrace Pollution Plan That Could Cost Them $24B

38 points by blondie9x 10y ago

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Air travel is already pretty efficient and clean? Certainly when calculating emissions per passenger-mile. Compare them to shipping, which is at the other end of the emissions spectrum. Lets hear something about cleaning up the oil-burners sometime.
- Retric 10y ago
  You have that reversed, shipping is vastly more energy efficient than air travel. ~30% of most airlines budget is for fuel.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    6000 ships produce what, 25% of all the air pollution in the world? How can that possibly be true?
    - Retric 10y ago
      You are thinking of a very specific type of pollution such as sulphur oxide. Ships have zero emission standards and burn very low grade fuel. Cars/jets etc have the sulphur removed from their fuel. However, this stuff tends to go away fairly quickly, in terms of long term pollution such as CO2 they are very low. Don't forget Jet fuel takes a lot of processing and produces a lot of pollution before it's added to the aircraft.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Or more likely, the original source for that claim was thinking of a very specific type of pollution, but it then got badly reported and mangled so that a surprising number of people now think that a small number of ships produce a major chunk of all emissions. As I recall, the article which really made a splash on this topic was clearly written about sulphur dioxide, but the headline just said "pollution" and everybody ran with it.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - sp332 10y ago
    Not the first time this confusion has come up on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 CO2 emissions are low (which is what this article is about), but particulate and other emissions can be pretty extreme.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Agreed, it should be noted that most shipping related pollution has a short half life in the atmosphere and are released far from people limiting it's impact. However, the impact near ports can be rather significant and it will travel over a large area.
      - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Because only people need clean air? This is the armchair ecologist viewpoint I hear all the time. If it doesn't bother me, its not a problem for the environment right?
        Retric 10y ago
        Scale is important. Not a lot of stuff lives over the middle of the ocean or even under it past the continental shelf's. Further, the ocean really does dilute this stuff to a rather extreme degree. Granted, it's still an issue, but it's simply a smaller one than CO2.
        JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Almost all life in the ocean is in the top two meters. That's the part that would be most affected by air pollution. Its the part doing the 'diluting'. Again, this is a case of "its not bothering me so its ok" ecology.
        Retric 10y ago
        > Its the part doing the 'diluting'. This is really far from true. Acid rain is one of the primary issues with SOx pollution. It concentrates in rivers for example because the volume of rain water to overall water is very high. In the ocean new rain water never makes up a significant fraction of the top two meters of water. PS: There is no need for gut reactions here, it's not hard to test for sulfur compounds.
- cossatot 10y ago
  Well of course per passenger-mile shipping is less efficient than air travel, because shipping is primarily transportation for goods, not for people. A big container ship has what, 20 people? Nonetheless, you're right that shipping should receive more attention. I think that it's less visible, less profitable, and more economically critical than air travel, which is often seen as a luxury. This would make taxing it more of a tax on economic activity. Air travel produces a factor of ~100 more C02 per unit mass transported than maritime transport [1]. It seems that shipping is a little understudied, but apparently a leaked UN IPCC report (from 2008, so pre-crash, peak globalization) states that shipping produced 1.1 billion tonnes† [2] of CO2 annually. This number is ~4x higher than other studies so maybe it's more accurate, maybe it's not. Air travel on the other hand produces 780 million tonnes of CO2 per year [3]. The major issue is that, as stated in TFA, it's supposed to triple in coming decades. I am not sure that global shipping is. †I am quoting 'tonnes' in both which I think refers to metric tons, not imperial measurements, so I believe the units are comparable. Shipping may be much easier to improve technologically than air travel, though. I'm sure many of the ships burn low-quality diesel. However, they're of the scale where very small nuclear reactors are available, and I have heard talk of ships being powered by natural gas. Ships can also deal with heavy batteries, so maybe in some instances offshore wind or solar farms could provide electricity? I have also heard of ships actually being powered directly by wind, but maybe this is a rumor, some far off Silicon Valley pipe dream. [1]: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/climate-change-basics/air-travel-and-climate-change/ http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/cli... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatec... [3]: http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Shipping burns tar and sludge. The worst smokey emissions possible. Its appalling.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    I believe there are exactly two direct-wind-powered cargo ships in the world. http://www.skysails.info/ http://www.skysails.info/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sp332 10y ago
I was wondering how airlines were going to cut emissions. Turns out they're not. To be clear, the 15-year agreement would not force airlines to cut their pollution. Instead, companies would compensate for any emissions growth after the accord begins in 2020 by buying credits that back renewable energy development, forest preservation or other environmental endeavors.
- surfmike 10y ago
  Since emissions will cost more, they'll have more incentive to upgrade their fleets to more efficient planes.
  - sp332 10y ago
    Sure, but the incentives are mostly already there. And they're not buying the new super-efficient large jets because they have a hard time selling enough tickets to fill them. So I don't think they're going to be physically able to reduce emissions too much further, certainly not enough to hold overall emissions steady as flights rack up 3x as many miles over the next few decades. To put it a different way, most of the advances here will not be in more efficient ways to fly, but in more effective ways to sell carbon credits to the airlines.
- cossatot 10y ago
  Offsets/credits are a fine idea, assuming they work. And forest preservation by Brazil would hopefully be domestic, and not chopping down the Amazon has additional non-carbon environmental bonuses.
- phkahler 10y ago
  What a great barrier to competition. If a smaller airline grows, they'll have to buy "credits". Cap and Trade is political bullshit. If you want to tax carbon emissions, tax the fuel coming out of the ground and let the drillers and diggers pass that on to whomever uses the fuel. It's the only way to be fair about it. Otherwise just accept that this is nothing more than a political game.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gozur88 10y ago
Cost them $24B? Hahaha. No. Come on now, you know airlines aren't going to embrace anything that costs them money. If every airline has to pay the fees, carriers will be free to raise prices to cover the additional cost. Fewer people will fly, so ticket prices will go up more, eventually reaching an equilibrium where the carriers make about what they make today moving fewer people from place to place.

38 points by blondie9x 10y ago

Air travel is already pretty efficient and clean? Certainly when calculating emissions per passenger-mile. Compare them to shipping, which is at the other end of the emissions spectrum. Lets hear something about cleaning up the oil-burners sometime.

Retric 10y ago
You have that reversed, shipping is vastly more energy efficient than air travel. ~30% of most airlines budget is for fuel.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  6000 ships produce what, 25% of all the air pollution in the world? How can that possibly be true?
  - Retric 10y ago
    You are thinking of a very specific type of pollution such as sulphur oxide. Ships have zero emission standards and burn very low grade fuel. Cars/jets etc have the sulphur removed from their fuel. However, this stuff tends to go away fairly quickly, in terms of long term pollution such as CO2 they are very low. Don't forget Jet fuel takes a lot of processing and produces a lot of pollution before it's added to the aircraft.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Or more likely, the original source for that claim was thinking of a very specific type of pollution, but it then got badly reported and mangled so that a surprising number of people now think that a small number of ships produce a major chunk of all emissions. As I recall, the article which really made a splash on this topic was clearly written about sulphur dioxide, but the headline just said "pollution" and everybody ran with it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- sp332 10y ago
  Not the first time this confusion has come up on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 CO2 emissions are low (which is what this article is about), but particulate and other emissions can be pretty extreme.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Agreed, it should be noted that most shipping related pollution has a short half life in the atmosphere and are released far from people limiting it's impact. However, the impact near ports can be rather significant and it will travel over a large area.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Because only people need clean air? This is the armchair ecologist viewpoint I hear all the time. If it doesn't bother me, its not a problem for the environment right?
      - Retric 10y ago
        Scale is important. Not a lot of stuff lives over the middle of the ocean or even under it past the continental shelf's. Further, the ocean really does dilute this stuff to a rather extreme degree. Granted, it's still an issue, but it's simply a smaller one than CO2.
        JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Almost all life in the ocean is in the top two meters. That's the part that would be most affected by air pollution. Its the part doing the 'diluting'. Again, this is a case of "its not bothering me so its ok" ecology.
        Retric 10y ago
        > Its the part doing the 'diluting'. This is really far from true. Acid rain is one of the primary issues with SOx pollution. It concentrates in rivers for example because the volume of rain water to overall water is very high. In the ocean new rain water never makes up a significant fraction of the top two meters of water. PS: There is no need for gut reactions here, it's not hard to test for sulfur compounds.
cossatot 10y ago
Well of course per passenger-mile shipping is less efficient than air travel, because shipping is primarily transportation for goods, not for people. A big container ship has what, 20 people? Nonetheless, you're right that shipping should receive more attention. I think that it's less visible, less profitable, and more economically critical than air travel, which is often seen as a luxury. This would make taxing it more of a tax on economic activity. Air travel produces a factor of ~100 more C02 per unit mass transported than maritime transport [1]. It seems that shipping is a little understudied, but apparently a leaked UN IPCC report (from 2008, so pre-crash, peak globalization) states that shipping produced 1.1 billion tonnes† [2] of CO2 annually. This number is ~4x higher than other studies so maybe it's more accurate, maybe it's not. Air travel on the other hand produces 780 million tonnes of CO2 per year [3]. The major issue is that, as stated in TFA, it's supposed to triple in coming decades. I am not sure that global shipping is. †I am quoting 'tonnes' in both which I think refers to metric tons, not imperial measurements, so I believe the units are comparable. Shipping may be much easier to improve technologically than air travel, though. I'm sure many of the ships burn low-quality diesel. However, they're of the scale where very small nuclear reactors are available, and I have heard talk of ships being powered by natural gas. Ships can also deal with heavy batteries, so maybe in some instances offshore wind or solar farms could provide electricity? I have also heard of ships actually being powered directly by wind, but maybe this is a rumor, some far off Silicon Valley pipe dream. [1]: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/climate-change-basics/air-travel-and-climate-change/ http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/cli... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatec... [3]: http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Shipping burns tar and sludge. The worst smokey emissions possible. Its appalling.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  I believe there are exactly two direct-wind-powered cargo ships in the world. http://www.skysails.info/ http://www.skysails.info/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sp332 10y ago

I was wondering how airlines were going to cut emissions. Turns out they're not. To be clear, the 15-year agreement would not force airlines to cut their pollution. Instead, companies would compensate for any emissions growth after the accord begins in 2020 by buying credits that back renewable energy development, forest preservation or other environmental endeavors.

surfmike 10y ago
Since emissions will cost more, they'll have more incentive to upgrade their fleets to more efficient planes.
- sp332 10y ago
  Sure, but the incentives are mostly already there. And they're not buying the new super-efficient large jets because they have a hard time selling enough tickets to fill them. So I don't think they're going to be physically able to reduce emissions too much further, certainly not enough to hold overall emissions steady as flights rack up 3x as many miles over the next few decades. To put it a different way, most of the advances here will not be in more efficient ways to fly, but in more effective ways to sell carbon credits to the airlines.
cossatot 10y ago
Offsets/credits are a fine idea, assuming they work. And forest preservation by Brazil would hopefully be domestic, and not chopping down the Amazon has additional non-carbon environmental bonuses.
phkahler 10y ago
What a great barrier to competition. If a smaller airline grows, they'll have to buy "credits". Cap and Trade is political bullshit. If you want to tax carbon emissions, tax the fuel coming out of the ground and let the drillers and diggers pass that on to whomever uses the fuel. It's the only way to be fair about it. Otherwise just accept that this is nothing more than a political game.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gozur88 10y ago

Cost them $24B? Hahaha. No. Come on now, you know airlines aren't going to embrace anything that costs them money. If every airline has to pay the fees, carriers will be free to raise prices to cover the additional cost. Fewer people will fly, so ticket prices will go up more, eventually reaching an equilibrium where the carriers make about what they make today moving fewer people from place to place.