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Can we make flying "Green"?

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C C Offline
https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/1...green.html

INTRO: "Flight shaming" is a social movement that originated in Sweden a few years ago. Its aim is to discourage people from flying because it’s bad for the environment. But let’s be honest, we’re not going to give up flying just because some Swedes think we should. I mean, we already shop at IKEA, isn’t that Swedish enough?

But seriously, maybe the flight shamers have a point. If aliens come to visit us one day, how are we supposed to explain this mess? Maybe we should indeed try to do something about airplane emissions. What are airlines doing anyway, isn’t it their job? What are the technological options, and will any of them give you a plausible excuse if flight shamers come for you? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Flying may be good for watching four movies in a row, but it really isn’t good for the planet. It’s the third biggest contribution to carbon emissions from individuals, after having children and driving a car. Altogether, flying currently accounts for around 2 point 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, that’s about a billion tons each year. 81 percent of this comes from passenger flights, and another 60 percent of that, so about half of the total, are international flights.

Most of the flights, not so surprisingly, come from high-income countries. If flying was as a country itself, it would rank sixth in carbon dioxide emissions, and it would congratulate the new British Prime Minister by reminding her that “The closest emergency exit may be behind you.”

The total carbon dioxide emissions from flying have been increasing steeply in the past decades, but the relative contribution has remained stable at 2 point 5 percent. This is partly because everybody is emitting more with everything, but also because planes have become way more fuel efficient. Planes consume today about half as much fuel as they did in the mid 1960’s.

Carbon dioxide emissions are not the only way that flying contributes to climate change. It also adds some other greenhouse gasses, and it creates clouds at high altitude that trap heat. But in this video, we’ll focus on the carbon dioxide emissions because that’s the biggest issue, right after the length of this video.

There are four ways that airlines are currently trying to reduce their carbon emissions, that’s electric planes, hydrogen, biofuel, and synthetic fuel. We’ll talk about each of those starting with electric planes... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/RVaVMyd0lI0

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RVaVMyd0lI0
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