17 ms·

What about climate change [1], and using less fossil fuels? We need the opposite - less first class, less business class seats, less private jets, to maximise t

• delhanty 10y ago
  +1 for this! I'd like to see a moratorium on space tourism too. That's unlikely to be a popular view on Hacker News though, and it's got zero chance of happening anyway.
  • kobeya 10y ago
    What's the point of living then?
    • sametmax 10y ago
      If you can't live without this, your life must be terrible.
      • kobeya 10y ago
        People value different things.
  • cloakandswagger 10y ago
    I propose all human beings be allocated a 10x10 meter concrete apartment (15x15 if living with a partner, and 20x20 if you are permitted to have children). Furthermore, everyone will be given a standard monthly food ration consisting of rice, dry beans and powdered milk. Each resident can own up to 3 "luxury" items selected from a standard catalog. Each resident is permitted to travel no more than 150 miles from their residence each month, and personal cars are banned. Imagine how quickly we could heal the environment if everyone could agree to these common sense restrictions!
• cyberferret 10y ago
  The issue is that other forms of supersonic propulsion, outside of jet engines, are all still in very early experimental stages, and not proven. Engine manufacturers have spent a TON of R&D on fanjet engines and making them several orders of magnitude more efficient than the engines of 20 years ago even, but supersonic flight needs more than a fanjet - they need to look at turbojets, with afterburners etc. There is not much scope to play with with those unfortunately. What works at subsonic speeds at 30,000 feet won't at Mach 2+ at 80,000 feet. But there are other aspects to conserving energy. When Concorde lands, then energy expended by the braking systems on the rollout is the same as that used to power an average family house for a day. If they could improve kinetic energy recovery systems (as they do on Formula 1 cars and some electric cars), then that energy could be fed back in some way, to power on board avionics etc.
  • bigiain 10y ago
    "making them several orders of magnitude more efficient than the engines of 20 years ago even" Surely that's an exaggeration? (If not - I'd love links to explain what's changed... 100 to 1000 times improvement since the mid '90s seems unlikely to me though...)
    • david-given 10y ago
      It's an exaggeration. But aeroplanes have gotten much, much more efficient (and quieter) --- this suggests an improvement of 55% since 1950: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft Looking at actual figures: Concorde got about 5MJ per passenger-km. A modern 747-400 gets about 0.9MJ per passenger-km. Meanwhile trains vary enormously but US trains appear to get about 2.7MJ per passenger-km, while Portugese ones are about 0.07MJ; but I don't know if that's comparing like with like (the data is unclear). Cars seem to get about 1.2MJ per passenger-km. A big cruise ship seems to get about 5.9MJ per passenger-km, plus you need to spend lots more energy on, essentially, life support because they're so slow. These numbers were brought to you by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport... and the 'units' command, which is awesome. Also, someone who isn't me needs to overhaul that page to use consistent units everywhere.
• fhars 10y ago
  I'd half expect that argument to be countered with the proposal that since supersonic planes will have a higher cruise altitude you could just offset the climate effect of the carbon dioxide by adding enough sulfur to the fuel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols_(geoengineering) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols... says Airliners could use lower-quality sulfur-rich fuels on higher altitudes. That approach would utilize regular flights and enable airlines to use cheaper fuels on long-distance flights. It would require using separate fuel tanks for takeoff and landing in populated areas, due to toxicity and olfactory sensations of sulfur oxides. This can be achieved in many airliners without difficulty, since they already have separate and selectable wing and fuselage fuel tanks.), and I am not even sure if I would be fascinated or appalled by the argument...
• LoSboccacc 10y ago
  I'm not one of them but why rich people can't ever have nice things? Just tax the heck out of them to offset whatever damage they cause to the environment, they're price insensitive anyway.
  • jon-wood 10y ago
    The environment doesn't accept bribes. Taxing the rich doesn't offset damage to the environment.
    • mongol 10y ago
      It certainly can if the tax can be put to use that benefits the environment in other ways.
  • onion2k 10y ago
    For that to work you have to ensure there are no loopholes to avoid the taxation, that any offsetting actually works, and that no one tries to "disrupt" the industry by ignoring the rules. Not to mention the environmental impacts you can't offset such as the noise pollution suffered by everyone on the plane's flight path. It's far more effective to ban supersonic passenger flight. There are some "nice things" that money shouldn't be able to buy because they have too much downside for everyone else. Regardless of how much money you have, you still have to share Earth with everyone else.
    • paganel 10y ago
      > Not to mention the environmental impacts you can't offset such as the noise pollution suffered by everyone on the plane's flight path. It's far more effective to ban supersonic passenger flight. When you first read a paragraph like this without experiencing what airplane noise pollution actually means you say to yourself: "How bad that can actually be? The airplanes fly at an altitude of 10,000m, I'm sure it can't be that bad. Right?" Wrong. Since the Ukrainian Civil War started lots of large airplanes have been diverted to fly above my parents' country house, somewhere in Eastern Europe. The closest airport is located at about 140 km, but it doesn't matter, because at least once every hour you can hear those damn big "birds" flying 10km above you. It's even more unsettling when you notice them at 5 in the morning, as you had quickly woken up ready to fall asleep again but you now can't because there's that nasty airplane noise making its way through the house's concrete walls. Supersonic flying over populated areas would increase that shitty noise exponentially.
• hannob 10y ago
  Thanks, just wanted to write a similar comment. It's kinda shocking that a major newspaper can cover such a topic without even mentioning climate change at all.
  • rayvd 10y ago
    With so many (all?) of the prediction models being completely off the mark, and the lack of significant temperature increase over the last decade plus, the perpetual mention of pending climate catastrophe just isn't as relevant as it used to be.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      The global temperature anomaly in 2006 was 0.63C, in 2016 it was 0.99C. Tell me more about this supposed lack of significant temperature increase over the last decade. Sources: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/graph_data/Global_Mean_Estimates_based_on_Land_and_Ocean_Data/graph.txt https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/graph_data/Global_...
    • jfoutz 10y ago
      Off the mark like under predicting? [1] Even simple models from 35 years ago indicate, at the global scale, warming. And, you know, that model while not very sophisticated, seems to be holding up well. [1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/evaluating-a-1981-temperature-projection/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/evalua...
• belorn 10y ago
  Is it the difference big enough that its worth putting political capital on stopping faster and more comfortable air travel? I would much prefer if focus where on high-speed rails that (if my memory is correct) has the lowest climate effect of all forms of travel except biking.
  • ajdlinux 10y ago
    It would be awfully nice if all the advanced engineering effort being put into multiple competing supersonic programs went towards working on lower emissions for the next generation of regular subsonic aircraft. If we can make a new subsonic jet for normal people that's at least 30-40% less carbon intensive, then that's something to get excited about. Agreed on HSR though - here in Australia HSR has been a pipe dream for decades...
    • maxerickson 10y ago
      Would it make a difference? The desire for cost savings by way of using less fuel already means that huge effort is devoted to improving jet engines (and planes, the 787 is quite different than previous jumbos). Even after all that, slower planes are more efficient than jets.
    • spaceandshit 10y ago
      Although there is obviously still effort being put into the supersonic programs, aerospace giants like Boeing and Airbus are working pretty hard to get a reduction in NOx, emissions and fuel consumption. We have gone a long way in designing a good aircraft, and have been making it more efficient over the last few years. One of the primary goals of these manufacturers right now is to become more efficient. [1] NASA has some mid-term goals for 2035 in terms of emissions, NOx and fuel consumption, in terms of TRLs. [1] https://aero.larc.nasa.gov/files/2012/11/Low-Noise-Subsonic-Challenge-2016.pdf https://aero.larc.nasa.gov/files/2012/11/Low-Noise-Subsonic-...
    • ThenAsNow 10y ago
      A lot of effort is in fact being placed in these areas. NASA has had the N+1, N+2, etc., programs. There is a lot of interest in distributed electric propulsion (see the ESAero work), and Europe is working on their Clean Sky programs which are actively trying to push what is now called "Open Rotor" propulsion technologies. What is missing is major civil airframer (i.e., Boeing, Airbus) commitment to take some risks with new concepts that go beyond traditional tube-and-wing. Unfortunately, the outsourcing disasters that happened with 787 have convinced Boeing management that they "took too much risk" with the 787, conflating programmatic and technical risk, and it's hard to be sanguine about Boeing prospects for going beyond traditional configurations.
• sparkzilla 10y ago
  There is no climate change. Fuck off.
  • sctb 10y ago
    Please comment civilly and substantively on HN or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• rwmj 10y ago
  Better to develop some sort of awesome virtual reality so that people don't need to travel as much to meet each other. (Yes yes people will still travel sometimes, but there's a lot of low-hanging fruit like going to conferences and business meetings where travel is not really necessary)
  • ghaff 10y ago
    People don't go to conferences and business meetings primarily to do the things that VR and recorded presentations can replace. If they did, conferences would have gone away years ago.
    • rwmj 10y ago
      Did I say they did? That's why watching youtube videos from FOSDEM doesn't replace going to FOSDEM. But it's also clear that current VR or even "telepresence" robots (ie. ipads on sticks) are awful and there's a huge opportunity to make virtual interaction at virtual conferences great.
• mikeash 10y ago
  48 tons of jet fuel to take 300 people on that route works out to around 70 passenger-miles per gallon, and that's not even assigning any fuel consumption to the cargo being carried. Airliners are pretty efficient. That's actually a pretty bad one, many airliners can do well over 100 passenger-miles per gallon. Air travel makes up about 2% of human CO2 emissions. Certainly you can make an argument that a lot of it is pretty wasteful since a lot of people on airliners don't need to travel, but there are far better areas to worry about if you want to curb emissions.
  • j7ake 10y ago
    As a normal consumer, air travel would just definitely be a significant portion of your emissions. One round trip trans Atlantic fight would be comparable to one years worth of commute by car. The units that really matter are tons of co2 equivalent.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      Your personal share of that trip (ignoring cargo and such) would be about half a ton of CO2. Per capita emissions in the US are about 17 tons. The portion isn't negligible, but it's not all that great. For comparison, the average American drives about 12,000 miles per year and gets around 25MPG, resulting in CO2 emissions of around 5 tons. If you want to cut CO2, your efforts are best spent on electricity generation, heating, and road transportation.
• twoslide 10y ago
  This is exactly right. A far better form of innovation is to make better use of aircraft cabin volume. Every time I fly, it seems like a good 30 - 50% of the cabin volume is either (a) empty space of (b) overhead bags. Something like this [1] seems to lower carbon intensity and improve comfort. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/contour-aerospace-factory-design-unveiled-new-lairs-for-airplane-seats-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/contour-aerospace-factory-des...
  • in_cahoots 10y ago
    I looked around and these seats apparently give "higher density than first-class seats," i.e. they're much less dense than coach. I don't think this will lower most people's carbon footprint.
    • twoslide 10y ago
      Yes, I guess these particular seats are not more dense, but the idea of trading some cabin volume for legroom seems a good one, but requires some innovation.
• prostoalex 10y ago
  From pure capacity management point of view this would work. From financial perspective the cost of a first-class ticket is much higher proportionally than the space occupied by that seat. Full-fare first-class passengers subsidize coach passengers on a promotional or discounted ticket, enabling air travel for many. Remove the subsidy, and average cost per coach ticket might increase, which is why Southwest (which does not have first-class in its fleet) is just sometimes, but not always, the cheapest option.
  • andruby 10y ago
    What is the vacancy factor in first class vs economy class? My observation from flying often would estimate coach being 70~80% full on typical routes and first/economy class only being ~50% full. I would also guess that the average paid price is only half of the full first class price. Would there be a public source for any of this data? Or anyone with in insight in these numbers that want to share anything?
    • prostoalex 10y ago
      I'd venture the vacancy rates are inversely proportional to distance (first-class on a long-haul Los Angeles to Tokyo is a somewhat better deal than first-class on a quick Seattle to Portland) and proximity to business centers (where company pays vs me paying out of pocket). It seems against any airline's self-interest to have those numbers in the open, this analysis uses the availability of free upgrades (unsold first-class seats that are given away to airline customers with preferred status) as a reasonable proxy https://skift.com/2016/08/27/the-state-of-airline-upgrades-for-the-big-3-u-s-carriers/ https://skift.com/2016/08/27/the-state-of-airline-upgrades-f...
• closeparen 10y ago
  Another part of the refugee issue happens because people don't travel very much, and are susceptible to believing in propaganda that dehumanizes the populations of places that are so far away they don't even seem real. I'd imagine it's harder to get behind the carpet-bombing of a place that you've been and people you've met. Let's have more air travel, not less. Joining the military (or a terrorist organization) should not be anyone's best chance of seeing the world. Yet sometimes it is.