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Why not? Maybe because it’s the exact opposite of what we should be doing? We need to find ways for people to burn less carbon, not more. How about improving th
by namdnay 4y ago
Why not? Maybe because it’s the exact opposite of what we should be doing? We need to find ways for people to burn less carbon, not more. How about improving the efficiency of normal aircraft, or even better work on ways to reduce travel altogether
I know I’m a bit off topic, but in 2023 are we still saying “why not” when someone comes up with another cool way to burn hydrocarbons?
- theherk 4y agoBurn fewer hydrocarbons in this case.
- geysersam 4y agoDoes it say that in the article? Sounds implausible. Fuel usage increases drastically with speed.
- saagarjha 4y agoGenerally these planes fly very high and encounter reduced air resistance.
- geysersam 4y agoOkay, but 9 Mach is a lot. And flying higher also burns more fuel to reach that altitude. Not sure which of the effects dominate though. All in all, I'd be extremely surprised if this technology reduces fuel consumption. The only mention in the text about fuel usage is that they need to use a special engine with lower fuel consumption to even be able to put people and equipment on the plane. Why don't regular jets have that problem? Because they don't consume that much fuel.
- supermatt 4y agoIts a bit of linguistic pedantry: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/fewer-vs-less https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/fewer-vs-less
- eru 4y agoThat rule only exists for prescriptive wannabe grammarians anyway.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SamBam 4y agoExcept they didn't even correct correctly. GP said "We need to find ways for people to burn less carbon," which is totally correct. "Carbon" is being used as a mass noun.
- theherk 4y agoI don't know if you are referring about my comment "fewer hydrocarbons", but it was a direct reference to the post I was referring to, "cool way to burn hydrocarbons". I wasn't trying to be pedantic or correcting anybody. Maybe I should have said less, but... I just didn't. The point is simply that higher efficiency doesn't directly equate to more usage; though it can in some cases.
- supermatt 4y agoMy bad, I misinterpreted the intent behind the emphasis. Sorry :)
- amelius 4y agoEven if it burns fewer hydrocarbons per mile, the shorter travel time means that more people will want to use it.
- kijin 4y agoThe hypothetical plane can only carry a dozen people at a time and burns a lot more fuel per mile than a comparable subsonic aircraft, so the tickets will be very expensive. Most people will not be able to justify the cost, even most business travelers.
- amelius 4y agoYes, but fast forward 10, 20 years into the future.
- kijin 4y agoUnless the cost of oil goes down dramatically, the only way for hypersonic flight to become affordable for the masses is for new technology to achieve drastic fuel savings. If that happens, there would be no reason to oppose it any more than one might oppose "regular" air travel today. Commercial airlines have an extremely strong incentive to reduce carbon emissions, more so than virtually any other industry. I wouldn't worry too much about aviation tech moving in the less efficient direction.
- paulcole 4y agoTbh as society we don’t care that much about the environment and we like flying long distances in planes that go fast. We say we care about the environment, but none of our actions (again, as a society) recently back that up in a real way. Until the effects of climate change are felt in a very real way by people currently alive with something meaningful to lose, then there’s not much hope for people to do anything but look for another cool way to burn hydrocarbons.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoah ok then well that's settled
- londons_explore 4y agoData backs this up. World oil production has been ~100 million barrels per day, and gradually increasing for many years (except the covid year). People like to have recycling bins and eco friendly water bottles, but they don't think twice about driving a few hundred miles in a gas guzzling truck, producing as much CO2 as tens of thousands of water bottles. Nor do they worry about firing up the AC or heating, burning loads of natural gas, far outweighing the little solar panels they put on the roof to look eco friendly. It's all for show.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> they don't think twice about driving a few hundred miles in a gas guzzling truck, producing as much CO2 as tens of thousands of water bottles This is a strange complaint to levy while the world’s largest economies aggressively electrify their transportation systems.
- londons_explore 4y agoThat's one of the few places where what one does 'for show', and what might be an effective strategy overlaps...
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- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> in 2023 are we still saying “why not” when someone comes up with another cool way to burn hydrocarbons This is solvable with synthetic fuels and offsets. > work on ways to reduce travel altogether Good luck forcing quality of life reduction as an explicit policy goal. Or betting on less contact widening of our circles of empathy in the way we must to address global, long-term problems like climate change.
- lm28469 4y ago> This is solvable with synthetic fuels and offsets. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/50689/carbon-offsets-net-zero-greenwashing-scam/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/50689/carbon-... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed... https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fwirtschaft%2F2023-01%2Fco2-certificates-fraud-emissions-trading-climate-protection-english https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de... https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-era-of-the-great-carbon-fraud-is-upon-us/ https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-era-of-the-great-... > Good luck forcing quality of life reduction as an explicit policy goal. Either we chose to do it willingly or we'll be forced to do it. One is chose frugality, the other is forced poverty, either way we'll eventually get there
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoI agree our current offset regime is a scam. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do right, or that doing it right shouldn’t be a precondition to scaling something like supersonic travel. (Would note that linking to Greenpeace seldom strengthens one’s argument.) > we chose to do it willingly or we'll be forced to do it These outcomes are distributed differently.
- lm28469 4y agoSo your argument is based on a scam program and fuels we don't really have yet That's not very convincing. In a perfect world with perfect people and infinite money we could indeed do a lot of crazy things, but then again we have to deal with reality
- londons_explore 4y agoDon't apply eco-morals to someone else's business plan. It doesn't scale - if something is profitable, there will always be someone doing it behind closed doors. Instead, work to change the regulatory environment so that a non-eco business plan isn't profitable. That most likely means carbon taxes, carbon caps, or carbon trading.
- namdnay 4y agoI don’t follow your argument - yes of course, the only way to put a stop to this madness is by global legislation, but that shouldn’t stop us naming and shaming those who keep doing it in the meanwhile. If slave labour is legal in North Korea that doesn’t mean we can’t criticise someone posting in hacker news about their new startup that will offshore UI testing to Pyongyang slave workshops
- vlovich123 4y agoCarbon taxes yes. Provides a direct incentive to get off carbon and those taxes should be invested directly into meaningful alternatives. Difficult to figure out what the pricing actually should be. Carbon caps maybe but it might cripple industry as opposed to taxes which just become priced in. Maybe start with carbon caps 20% higher than today’s levels and bring them down over time. Still, unclear how to enact it. Is it per industry? How do you define that industry? What about companies in multiple industries? Is it for a single country? The price of carbon might sky rocket and you’ll get weird secondary effects like making oil companies richer yet. Carbon trading no. I used to think it was an interesting idea to explore but it’s extremely difficult to avoid scams: well I was going to clear cut a forest, but I didn’t so now I get carbon credits. Or “donate $X while flying to offset your emissions” and it’s completely unclear where that $X actually goes (not to mention you’ve still emitted carbon and that $x hasn’t necessarily lowered carbon utilization somewhere else nor led to extra carbon sequestration. I think ultimately we need a carbon tax that subsidizes creation of more green energy capacity from sources like solar, wind, nuclear (~30%) + long distance power distribution (HVDC) and investment in startups doing sequestration or making nuclear even cheaper (~70%).
- SamBam 4y ago> Don't apply eco-morals to someone else's business plan. > Instead, work to change the regulatory environment so that a non-eco business plan isn't profitable. Huh? But the first step in identifying which regulations to put in is to apply "eco-morals," as you call them.
- melling 4y ago100,000 flights a day, every single day of the year 2% of emissions. Coal power plants 25% of emissions. So many people going after aviation, it explains how we got this far into the problem. Carl Sagan warned everyone about coal 40 years ago. https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI So, instead we talk about aviation
- geysersam 4y agoYes but most people around the world never fly. Lots of people use electricity generated from coal.
- melling 4y agoYes, but sort of irrelevant. If you want to fix a problem, start with 25% of it and not 2%. The people who plug something into the wall won’t know the difference if the electricity is generated from something other than coal. And please don’t wait 40 years to fix the problem. That delay likely increased climate change by a decade or so.
- vaylian 4y ago> Yes, but sort of irrelevant. If you want to fix a problem, start with 25% of it and not 2%. Those 25% from coal are themselves composed of several smaller percentages from different sources. The tricky part about climate change is that you have to start basically everywhere and look for opportunities to optimize, reduce, or completely eliminate emissions.
- melling 4y agoNot really. if you know 20-25% of emissions come from one source,… Sure, kicking the can down the road requires more miracles now. That “we need to do everything at once” is what people say after spending half a century off basically ignoring the problem.
- 4y ago