4 ms·

I think it is interesting that per km travelled, it is actually more energy efficient to travel by plane, than by car. This is mostly because most people tend t

by zizee 4y ago

I think it is interesting that per km travelled, it is actually more energy efficient to travel by plane, than by car. This is mostly because most people tend to drive solo, so they are moving around a lot of vehicle for just a single passenger. Of course people tend to travel much further/faster by plane. So prehaps it is not plane travel that you would like to see as a thing of the past, but traveling long distances? Or perhaps you class car ownership/driving in the same class of things that should go away.

ptman 4y ago
Is that spent fuel or ghg emissions? Because high-altitude emissions are worse.
- zizee 4y ago
  I was just looking at energy consumption per km travelled, and used this as a source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transpo... It's important to note that I'm just talking about an average situation. If a car is a massive gas guzzling thing, it's a much different equation from a micro-electric. I hadn't thought about the differences in high altitude emmissions vs low. If you'd asked me before today if there would be a vig difference, i would have guessed that eventually it all just mixes evenly throughout the atmosphere, regardless of wjere it was emmitted. But after what you wrote, I learnt that this might not be the case (the science is still investigating): https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9818/why-does-the-emission-of-aircrafts-at-higher-altitudes-have-a-greater-effect-on https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9818/why-do... And there are a few other potential issues with other pollution aircraft emit at higher levels.
elihu 4y ago
It would be nice if long-distance travel by train were much more practical than it currently is in the U.S. Personal vehicles are a huge source of CO2 emissions, but I don't think it's realistic to just ban them all. I would rather we focus on phasing out internal combustion as quickly as possible, which is a lot easier to do if we had suitable infrastructure. (Not just more public charge stations, but it should be standard for new apartment construction, and we should be looking at electrification of highways so cars don't need huge batteries for cross-country trips. It's not realistic to expect every car to have 500-1000 pounds worth of batteries. That doesn't scale, at least not in the short-to-medium term.) It would also be good if public policy didn't encourage large vehicles.

by zizee 4y ago

ptman 4y ago

Is that spent fuel or ghg emissions? Because high-altitude emissions are worse.

zizee 4y ago
I was just looking at energy consumption per km travelled, and used this as a source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transpo... It's important to note that I'm just talking about an average situation. If a car is a massive gas guzzling thing, it's a much different equation from a micro-electric. I hadn't thought about the differences in high altitude emmissions vs low. If you'd asked me before today if there would be a vig difference, i would have guessed that eventually it all just mixes evenly throughout the atmosphere, regardless of wjere it was emmitted. But after what you wrote, I learnt that this might not be the case (the science is still investigating): https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9818/why-does-the-emission-of-aircrafts-at-higher-altitudes-have-a-greater-effect-on https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9818/why-do... And there are a few other potential issues with other pollution aircraft emit at higher levels.

elihu 4y ago

It would be nice if long-distance travel by train were much more practical than it currently is in the U.S. Personal vehicles are a huge source of CO2 emissions, but I don't think it's realistic to just ban them all. I would rather we focus on phasing out internal combustion as quickly as possible, which is a lot easier to do if we had suitable infrastructure. (Not just more public charge stations, but it should be standard for new apartment construction, and we should be looking at electrification of highways so cars don't need huge batteries for cross-country trips. It's not realistic to expect every car to have 500-1000 pounds worth of batteries. That doesn't scale, at least not in the short-to-medium term.) It would also be good if public policy didn't encourage large vehicles.