5 ms·

What about replacing short haul jets with turbo props? Apparently they are more efficient which I find very surprising.

lm28469 5y ago
The rebound effect will take care of whatever progress you make in energy efficiency. As they say, it's not about the energy consumption of a single toaster, it's about the combined energy consumption of all the toasters. Plane engines are more efficient than ever but we also fly waaaaay much more than we used to, same for cars, &c. There aren't any ways to solve the problem without taking away personal convenience. At the end of the day you're still burning insane amount of non renewable energy for leisure.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The way to solve the problem without taking away convenience is to take yesterday’s atmospheric carbon, turn it into today’s jet fuel, and burn it tomorrow. Yea, that takes energy today, but is close to carbon neutral and I strongly suspect will happen in the next 50 years on a commercially viable scale.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Nuclear and solar energy can get us there. The endgame would be reproducing the plants cycle: grab atmospheric CO2, turn it into fuel (jet fuel instead of sugars), burn it, rinse, repeat.
    - lm28469 5y ago
      It sounds cool and all but that's sci fi for now... What we need is solution for now, not some hypothetical magical solution that's "just around the corner" and will save us all. What people thinking like that want is to not give a personal shit and let others figure out how to fix the issue they're part of long after they died. That's the "face responsibilities" part I was talking about.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Direct air capture fuels are not science fiction. They are not economically competitive at the moment with fossil fuels, but lithium ion batteries weren’t economically viable 25 years ago either for electric cars. Now they are. Do I think there could be an order of magnitude or more improvement in the costs for DAC fuels with research and scale? I do.
- nine_k 5y ago
  If the air travel has become cheaper, why? I'd say that combustion engines / turbines are so cheap to operate only because the cost of the fuel is the cost of drilling + refining + transportation, and it lacks the cost of exhaust. Now that the exhaust started to have a very real cost for the environment, it should start passing that cost to the engine operation. Estimating this cost is, of course, not very easy, but rough estimates can definitely be made. Levy a CO2 tax, and spend it exclusively on measures to fight the consequences of the global warming, like building dams around coastal cities.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    The "cost" view is bound to fail. Non renewable energies are free, the only cost you pay is extraction, the real work was done by nature during billions of years and is infinitely more valuable than anything humanity has ever made. There is no way to pass the cost to airline companies, because the cost is infinite. We're playing a losing game, and we know it, it's just a matter of time until we either run out of renewable energy or until the damage done to the environment is so bad that we physically can't continue. There is no winning combination for us, we have to accept that earth won't be able to sustain 8b+ people living like the average westerner, especially once we phase out non renewable energies

The rebound effect will take care of whatever progress you make in energy efficiency. As they say, it's not about the energy consumption of a single toaster, it's about the combined energy consumption of all the toasters. Plane engines are more efficient than ever but we also fly waaaaay much more than we used to, same for cars, &c. There aren't any ways to solve the problem without taking away personal convenience. At the end of the day you're still burning insane amount of non renewable energy for leisure.

sokoloff 5y ago
The way to solve the problem without taking away convenience is to take yesterday’s atmospheric carbon, turn it into today’s jet fuel, and burn it tomorrow. Yea, that takes energy today, but is close to carbon neutral and I strongly suspect will happen in the next 50 years on a commercially viable scale.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Nuclear and solar energy can get us there. The endgame would be reproducing the plants cycle: grab atmospheric CO2, turn it into fuel (jet fuel instead of sugars), burn it, rinse, repeat.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    It sounds cool and all but that's sci fi for now... What we need is solution for now, not some hypothetical magical solution that's "just around the corner" and will save us all. What people thinking like that want is to not give a personal shit and let others figure out how to fix the issue they're part of long after they died. That's the "face responsibilities" part I was talking about.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Direct air capture fuels are not science fiction. They are not economically competitive at the moment with fossil fuels, but lithium ion batteries weren’t economically viable 25 years ago either for electric cars. Now they are. Do I think there could be an order of magnitude or more improvement in the costs for DAC fuels with research and scale? I do.
nine_k 5y ago
If the air travel has become cheaper, why? I'd say that combustion engines / turbines are so cheap to operate only because the cost of the fuel is the cost of drilling + refining + transportation, and it lacks the cost of exhaust. Now that the exhaust started to have a very real cost for the environment, it should start passing that cost to the engine operation. Estimating this cost is, of course, not very easy, but rough estimates can definitely be made. Levy a CO2 tax, and spend it exclusively on measures to fight the consequences of the global warming, like building dams around coastal cities.
- lm28469 5y ago
  The "cost" view is bound to fail. Non renewable energies are free, the only cost you pay is extraction, the real work was done by nature during billions of years and is infinitely more valuable than anything humanity has ever made. There is no way to pass the cost to airline companies, because the cost is infinite. We're playing a losing game, and we know it, it's just a matter of time until we either run out of renewable energy or until the damage done to the environment is so bad that we physically can't continue. There is no winning combination for us, we have to accept that earth won't be able to sustain 8b+ people living like the average westerner, especially once we phase out non renewable energies