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What are the environmental implications of transitioning people traveling by car/train to small planes? In addition to being louder and dispersing pollutants ov

What are the environmental implications of transitioning people traveling by car/train to small planes? In addition to being louder and dispersing pollutants over a wider area, don't small planes generate significantly more GHG emissions than cars over the same number of miles? Also, given that planes are not nearly as easy to electrify as cars and trains (energy density is significantly lower in batteries than liquid fuel), it seems unlikely the planet will ever be able to support significant volumes of personal air transit. What are your thoughts on that?

n_ermosh 2y ago
Today, airplanes are not great when it comes to their environmental impacts. If we are successful in our bet that we can grow the GA market, we'll have the resources to invest into greener propulsion technology. That space is currently evolving quickly, with hybrid-electric, hydrogen, full electric and others all being explored. So it's in our plans to address that as well.
- namdnay 2y ago
  So your plan to reduce aircraft pollution is to… have more aircraft in the sky? Come on…
  - mightyham 2y ago
    Innovation doesn't come from nowhere, and demand for air travel is not going away. So if there is a small, personal, innovative platform that makes it easier to test new propulsion technology at scale (in contrast to large commercial airliners that are less innovative), it seems entirely possible that could help with aircraft pollution in the long run
    - Aachen 2y ago
      I'm sure that's what tobacco companies tell themselves also There is also the option of not being part of the problem and finding a different job. Not an option for all employees, full ack on that, but this founder/ceo figure can absolutely make that choice I see what you mean in that flying will always be something humanity does. We're not going to outlaw it, I have no illusions in that regard. Way too convenient and economically beneficial. Working on making it more accessible when we haven't made it even close to sustainable (with most of the solutions here today, it just needs to be scaled up and rolled out) instead of working on sustainability or alternatives to flying under a pretense of "it'll be better eventually!" is what I object to
- shafyy 2y ago
  Don't try to weasel your way out of this. Just be honest and say you like working on cool plane tech stuff and admit it's not great for the environment when more people will fly. No shame in that. Or maybe there is shame, but that's up to you.
  - n_ermosh 2y ago
    maybe I wasn't clear but I completely agree that airplanes are not good for the environment. That absolutely needs to be fixed. But to fix it requires capital and public demand. We are hoping to generate both by getting more people flying so that it's not just a niche people who fly planes and care about the environment working asking for it and spending money in the industry
    - burkaman 2y ago
      This is like saying that you know gas power plants are not good for the environment, so you're hoping to get gas generators into more homes to generate capital and demand to fix the problem. If your company is successful enough for you to invest significant resources into "greener propulsion technology", what is going to happen to all the planes you already sold to get there? Are you going to send an email blast out to all your customers telling them to stop flying now because it's time to pivot to hydrogen planes?
      - mightyham 2y ago
        Classic false equivalence. Mature airplane engine technology based on alternative energy really doesn't exsit at the moment, while the same cannot be said for residential energy. The existence of the a fossil fuel based car market provided an impetus for electric car and battery technology to develop. Similarly, practical alternative energy flight will likely develop faster if there is a market for small, innovative aircrafts.
    - breck 2y ago
      > airplanes are not good for the environment. > to fix it requires capital and public demand. In my engineering career, one thing I've learned is that if you fix problems B, C, and D, often it becomes a lot easier to fix orthogonal problem A, because the other fixes have made new things possible. I see what you are doing as fixing a lot of problems with flying, so then more attention can go into making planes quieter and more energy efficient. Perhaps yours is one of the steps to making planes as peaceful in the environment as birds[0]. [0] https://breckyunits.com/ifNatureIsDoingIt.html https://breckyunits.com/ifNatureIsDoingIt.html
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  So you have no incentive to vote for a carbon tax
- duped 2y ago
  I didn't want to make a snarky, unabashadly NIMBY comment until I read this response. For every dollar you lower barrier to entry in aviation, I'm going to be calling my local government representatives to raise it back up by two with taxes and fees. The solutions to environmental problems aren't to grow markets with technology we know is bad so we have the money to make it less bad. The solution is to make it so expensive for the average consumer that it's uneconomical to do the bad thing at all.
  - amluto 2y ago
    > I'm going to be calling my local government representatives to raise it back up by two with taxes and fees. Sometimes I think this sort of approach is why so many people on the right are sick of global warming. Sure, global warming is a serious problem, but that doesn't mean that taxing things you don't like is wise, fair, effective, or in any other respect a good idea. If you have a problem with emission of gasses with global warming potential, do that, but please do it across the board. Let's not specifically tax GA planes, ban gas water heaters, and do a bunch of other random minor-ish things that annoy people and don't actually target the problem.
    - callalex 2y ago
      Burning fossil fuels is the problem. We can argue until the cows come home about things like plastic straws and bags, but the fact is that burning fossil fuels is rapidly destroying the planet and no amount of burning is sustainable. Banning that is table stakes.
      - amluto 2y ago
        Proposing to ban burning fossil fuels entirely is a great way to get very little support for your proposal.
        smolder 2y ago
        Hence the decades of inaction and even subterfuge to prevent action.
morsch 2y ago
It's not just a question of whether they generate more GHG per mile, it's a question of whether they generate more GHG per hour. You wouldn't make a thousand mile trip over the weekend by car, but people don't bat an eye doing it by plane.
- bluGill 2y ago
  > You wouldn't make a thousand mile trip over the weekend by car, but people don't bat an eye doing it by plane. You wouldn't take that by car? I would and I'm not an outlier in the midwest - many of us do it all the time. There just isn't a better option for a family. Flying would cost thousands of dollars more and you risk missing a connection and the trip taking even longer. The train doesn't really go many places in the US and isn't cheap. Just get in the car and travel on your own time - it is relaxing after a while. If you get bored stop to see some small town attraction for an hour and continue on.
AdrianB1 2y ago
Hard to tell. I have a frequent route that takes me ~ 2 hours of flight (13 liters/hour, 26 liters in total) or ~ 10 hours to drive with around 50 liters of gas. Flying means burning 50% less gas. But for others there may be better driving, how to calculate that?
- echoangle 2y ago
  What kind of plane are we talking about here? A Cessna 172 is cruising at about 200 km/h, so your route would be 400 km. You’re not driving 10h for that, right?
  - AdrianB1 2y ago
    560 km, almost no highways, a lot of driving through the mountains at 50-60 km/h. Flying is an almost straight line of 320 km. Ikarus C42, cruising 160 km/h.
- limitedfrom 2y ago
  50% seems very unreasonable here, if not in the wrong direction overall. Ikarus C42 at about 86 knots will use 13 L/hr, for a two-hour flight, it's 26 L fuel and 8.31 kg CO2/gal avgas[1], this comes to 57 kg CO2 to cover 320 km (and this is assuming it immediately starts covering flight distance and not using gas for climbing/approach, etc.). An average new car in the EU uses 6 L/100 km in 2019[2]. To drive 320 km, this comes to 19 L of gasoline (8.1kg CO2/gallon finished motor gasoline[1]), which is then 41 kg CO2. Even if you had to make the auto trip 400 km because roads aren't as direct, this comes to 51 kg CO2. Nevermind that airports are rarely your final destination, nor in the city centre like train station would be, which adds significant distance to your overall trip. [1] https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php [2] https://www.iea.org/articles/fuel-economy-in-the-european-union https://www.iea.org/articles/fuel-economy-in-the-european-un...
  - creshal 2y ago
    > Even if you had to make the auto trip 400 km because roads aren't as direct, this comes to 51 kg CO2. What if there's a sogging great mountain range in the middle and I literally do need to drive 2-3x as far, because (rail) tunnels take something between 2 and 3 decades to build and won't be finished before 2040, if any are even planned to begin with?
kevinak 2y ago
There's a Swedish company working on making electric region air travel a thing - ahttps://heartaerospace.com https://heartaerospace.com I don't see why this wouldn't be possible to do with smaller air craft.

n_ermosh 2y ago

Today, airplanes are not great when it comes to their environmental impacts. If we are successful in our bet that we can grow the GA market, we'll have the resources to invest into greener propulsion technology. That space is currently evolving quickly, with hybrid-electric, hydrogen, full electric and others all being explored. So it's in our plans to address that as well.

namdnay 2y ago
So your plan to reduce aircraft pollution is to… have more aircraft in the sky? Come on…
- mightyham 2y ago
  Innovation doesn't come from nowhere, and demand for air travel is not going away. So if there is a small, personal, innovative platform that makes it easier to test new propulsion technology at scale (in contrast to large commercial airliners that are less innovative), it seems entirely possible that could help with aircraft pollution in the long run
  - Aachen 2y ago
    I'm sure that's what tobacco companies tell themselves also There is also the option of not being part of the problem and finding a different job. Not an option for all employees, full ack on that, but this founder/ceo figure can absolutely make that choice I see what you mean in that flying will always be something humanity does. We're not going to outlaw it, I have no illusions in that regard. Way too convenient and economically beneficial. Working on making it more accessible when we haven't made it even close to sustainable (with most of the solutions here today, it just needs to be scaled up and rolled out) instead of working on sustainability or alternatives to flying under a pretense of "it'll be better eventually!" is what I object to
shafyy 2y ago
Don't try to weasel your way out of this. Just be honest and say you like working on cool plane tech stuff and admit it's not great for the environment when more people will fly. No shame in that. Or maybe there is shame, but that's up to you.
- n_ermosh 2y ago
  maybe I wasn't clear but I completely agree that airplanes are not good for the environment. That absolutely needs to be fixed. But to fix it requires capital and public demand. We are hoping to generate both by getting more people flying so that it's not just a niche people who fly planes and care about the environment working asking for it and spending money in the industry
  - burkaman 2y ago
    This is like saying that you know gas power plants are not good for the environment, so you're hoping to get gas generators into more homes to generate capital and demand to fix the problem. If your company is successful enough for you to invest significant resources into "greener propulsion technology", what is going to happen to all the planes you already sold to get there? Are you going to send an email blast out to all your customers telling them to stop flying now because it's time to pivot to hydrogen planes?
    - mightyham 2y ago
      Classic false equivalence. Mature airplane engine technology based on alternative energy really doesn't exsit at the moment, while the same cannot be said for residential energy. The existence of the a fossil fuel based car market provided an impetus for electric car and battery technology to develop. Similarly, practical alternative energy flight will likely develop faster if there is a market for small, innovative aircrafts.
  - breck 2y ago
    > airplanes are not good for the environment. > to fix it requires capital and public demand. In my engineering career, one thing I've learned is that if you fix problems B, C, and D, often it becomes a lot easier to fix orthogonal problem A, because the other fixes have made new things possible. I see what you are doing as fixing a lot of problems with flying, so then more attention can go into making planes quieter and more energy efficient. Perhaps yours is one of the steps to making planes as peaceful in the environment as birds[0]. [0] https://breckyunits.com/ifNatureIsDoingIt.html https://breckyunits.com/ifNatureIsDoingIt.html
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
So you have no incentive to vote for a carbon tax
duped 2y ago
I didn't want to make a snarky, unabashadly NIMBY comment until I read this response. For every dollar you lower barrier to entry in aviation, I'm going to be calling my local government representatives to raise it back up by two with taxes and fees. The solutions to environmental problems aren't to grow markets with technology we know is bad so we have the money to make it less bad. The solution is to make it so expensive for the average consumer that it's uneconomical to do the bad thing at all.
- amluto 2y ago
  > I'm going to be calling my local government representatives to raise it back up by two with taxes and fees. Sometimes I think this sort of approach is why so many people on the right are sick of global warming. Sure, global warming is a serious problem, but that doesn't mean that taxing things you don't like is wise, fair, effective, or in any other respect a good idea. If you have a problem with emission of gasses with global warming potential, do that, but please do it across the board. Let's not specifically tax GA planes, ban gas water heaters, and do a bunch of other random minor-ish things that annoy people and don't actually target the problem.
  - callalex 2y ago
    Burning fossil fuels is the problem. We can argue until the cows come home about things like plastic straws and bags, but the fact is that burning fossil fuels is rapidly destroying the planet and no amount of burning is sustainable. Banning that is table stakes.
    - amluto 2y ago
      Proposing to ban burning fossil fuels entirely is a great way to get very little support for your proposal.
      - smolder 2y ago
        Hence the decades of inaction and even subterfuge to prevent action.

morsch 2y ago

It's not just a question of whether they generate more GHG per mile, it's a question of whether they generate more GHG per hour. You wouldn't make a thousand mile trip over the weekend by car, but people don't bat an eye doing it by plane.

bluGill 2y ago
> You wouldn't make a thousand mile trip over the weekend by car, but people don't bat an eye doing it by plane. You wouldn't take that by car? I would and I'm not an outlier in the midwest - many of us do it all the time. There just isn't a better option for a family. Flying would cost thousands of dollars more and you risk missing a connection and the trip taking even longer. The train doesn't really go many places in the US and isn't cheap. Just get in the car and travel on your own time - it is relaxing after a while. If you get bored stop to see some small town attraction for an hour and continue on.

AdrianB1 2y ago

Hard to tell. I have a frequent route that takes me ~ 2 hours of flight (13 liters/hour, 26 liters in total) or ~ 10 hours to drive with around 50 liters of gas. Flying means burning 50% less gas. But for others there may be better driving, how to calculate that?

echoangle 2y ago
What kind of plane are we talking about here? A Cessna 172 is cruising at about 200 km/h, so your route would be 400 km. You’re not driving 10h for that, right?
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  560 km, almost no highways, a lot of driving through the mountains at 50-60 km/h. Flying is an almost straight line of 320 km. Ikarus C42, cruising 160 km/h.
limitedfrom 2y ago
50% seems very unreasonable here, if not in the wrong direction overall. Ikarus C42 at about 86 knots will use 13 L/hr, for a two-hour flight, it's 26 L fuel and 8.31 kg CO2/gal avgas[1], this comes to 57 kg CO2 to cover 320 km (and this is assuming it immediately starts covering flight distance and not using gas for climbing/approach, etc.). An average new car in the EU uses 6 L/100 km in 2019[2]. To drive 320 km, this comes to 19 L of gasoline (8.1kg CO2/gallon finished motor gasoline[1]), which is then 41 kg CO2. Even if you had to make the auto trip 400 km because roads aren't as direct, this comes to 51 kg CO2. Nevermind that airports are rarely your final destination, nor in the city centre like train station would be, which adds significant distance to your overall trip. [1] https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php [2] https://www.iea.org/articles/fuel-economy-in-the-european-union https://www.iea.org/articles/fuel-economy-in-the-european-un...
- creshal 2y ago
  > Even if you had to make the auto trip 400 km because roads aren't as direct, this comes to 51 kg CO2. What if there's a sogging great mountain range in the middle and I literally do need to drive 2-3x as far, because (rail) tunnels take something between 2 and 3 decades to build and won't be finished before 2040, if any are even planned to begin with?

kevinak 2y ago

There's a Swedish company working on making electric region air travel a thing - ahttps://heartaerospace.com https://heartaerospace.com I don't see why this wouldn't be possible to do with smaller air craft.