Comment by 317070
6 hours ago
> it’s led to poor use of land with questionable climate impact.
In the short term, yes, because they were unnecessarily using carbon energy to grow the fuel.
But if we want to de-fossilise society in the long run, we need solutions for flying and long distance travel. Electric flying seems infeasible at the moment, and people are looking for suitable bio-fuels to make flying carbon neutral. Afaik the maximum planes were allowed to handle up to now, was a 50-50 mix kerosene-biofuel. [0]
Coconuts could be a breakthrough!
Just use any carbon monoxide source (e.g., pyrolysis of pretty much anything that'd release carbon dioxide when burned works, followed by some cleaning to get rid of some problematic catalyst poisons (notably sulfur compounds)), add hydrogen, and do Fischer-Tropsch. You get your high quality diesel fuel, often higher quality than what you can easily get from crude oil, btw.
If you don't have anything to pyrolyse, use a sodium or potassium hydroxide wet scrubber to extract it from ambient air and recover it from the solution with burnt lime; it preferentially bonds to the carbonate, becomes nearly insoluble; you take the lime stone powder, heat it with a high temperature blow dryer until the carbon dioxide cooks out (you can use pure carbon dioxide atmosphere for that! Just let out excess buildup of CO2 pressure to your output cooler/storage.), have regenerated the burnt lime, take the resulting CO2 and hydrogen to perform water gas shift to turn the mix into CO and H2O, condense out the H2O, then use the CO + H2 mix for your Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.
You can use incineration facilities to tap off concentrated CO2 and mine landfills until they are empty to keep the incinerators fed to get the CO2 possibly-cheaper than from the direct air capture units.
Start by using more solar cell glass laminate for exterior surfaces of new construction and as roofs over whatever parking lots you do want to keep around longer-term.
Synthetic non-fossil fuel is going to need plenty of electricity and probably much of that "just" to electrolyze water into hydrogen which is reasonable for seasonal energy "storage" (run them during the high-solar 25~50% of the year, use underground caverns (former natural gas wells) or liquify it to store for the winter, run the synthesis plant that consumes it year-round. Don't just burn the hydrogen in power plants, though you can keep existing fossil fuel plants around for a while to run them during the worst week or two of an average winter. But expect the power to be as expensive as each kWh you get today from a small gasoline generator fueled with fully-taxed highway gasoline...
I'm not sure that mass air transit has a place in a post-oil society were we try to leave at peace with the planet. Not just for the carbon impact, but also for the diversity of our species and cultures.
Should every Chinese and Indian visit Venice, even though it destroys the city little by little? Should we send things as futile as watermelons by plane?
Of course, the market wills it so some may think that it must happen, yet I feel that the globalisation and massification of everything made the world a less diverse and interesting place overall.
> I'm not sure that mass air transit has a place in a post-oil society were we try to leave at peace with the planet.
Me neither, but that doesn't stop me from celebrating possible breakthroughs in decarbonisation.
Why not stop other Europeans from going as well?
They live closer by? So less miles travelled, and in many cases travelled by train? Depending on how you generate electricity that works out quite differently.
Went to Venice by night train 15 years ago, would definitely recommend.
Conversely, however, perhaps we should question Europeans massively going to Phuket.
> Should every Chinese and Indian visit Venice, even though it destroys the city little by little? Should we send things as futile as watermelons by plane
Who are you to dictate where Chinese and Indians can and cannot visit or enjoy delicious watermelons?
If someone wants to eat a watermelon like a dirty slave that is their business and you are not going to deny them that right. This is pure insanity.
China and India are the biggest domestic aircraft markets in the world. The manufacturers literally cannot keep up with the demand. If trains were more effective they would have built them already. If California has taught us anything it's that implementation of high speed rail is a joke.
I am appalled at the level of delusion and craziness in these responses, it would take a year to respond to them all.
Air travel is not going anywhere and we are not setting society back 100 years on account of dubious climate histrionics.
Want to save the environment?
Ditch smartphones (future e-waste) and all their useless apps (and resource-sucking infra) we could all live without tomorrow.
Turns out we were as effective in moving goods and services and leisure travel in 2008 as we are today.
We just couldn't post to social media about how uncomfortable the airplane seat was and how the onboard Wi-Fi sucked.
> If trains were more effective
Well they're more convenient by virtue of being faster. The well off will inevitably pay for convenience if allowed.
> If California has taught us anything it's that implementation of high speed rail is a joke.
The only thing California stands as an example of in that regard is political dysfunction. A hypothetical benevolent dictator could have built out high speed rail there on time and on budget.
> I am appalled at the level of delusion and craziness in these responses
Has it not occurred to you that maybe that's a red flag that perhaps your own views or emotional state are a bit off?
> on account of dubious climate histrionics.
An empty dismissal of a vague and poorly defined (on your part) concept. How about engaging with a real position instead of name calling a straw man?
> Ditch smartphones (future e-waste)
And what do you suppose the combined total environmental impact is for those globally compared to other categories?
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How many coconuts are on one tree and how many tons of coconuts would be needed to replace kerosene globally?
I am 100% for decarbonization as fast as possible.
BTW Law of Conservation of Energy will be applied to coconut-based energy as well.
Vaclav Smil mentions in his book that we should consume less.
I see so many cheap weekender air tickets… it’s almost impossible to resist the temptation.
Annually 5 billions people travel by plane…
Vaclav Smil so wildly mispredicted the trajectory of renewables that his worldview should be taken with heavy skepticism.
That's true of basically all economists' predictions of technology. But he does a lot more than state predictions, his numbers and breakdowns and decompositioba are valuable in themselves.
The best solution to flying and long distance travel is to reduce it as much as possible. This means no more travelling for hedonistic (touristic) purposes.
I.e. measures like massive taxation (also for private jets of course).
I think that's a bad frame of mind in general. One of the primary ways industry tries to prevent regulation is by putting the burden on the individual. People think the only way we can have a healthy environment is by sacrificing things for the average person. And one of the worst things environmentalists can do is play along with that. In the US there's a push to ban plastic straws, which is annoying to the average consumer, while basically every item you can purchase comes wrapped in tons of plastic packaging. Industry LOVES things like this because it does little to actually reduce plastic consumption, and pits the average person against the environmental movement.
As another example, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes is several times less than the amount of methane that leaks out of natural gas pipelines every year (here I'm weighting emissions by their global warming impact). The overwhelming majority of those leaks can be prevented with minimal effort, but industry hasn't been incentivized to do so. Maybe before we start banning tourism, we have some inspectors checking pipelines for pinhole leaks?
Oh we can and should absolutely do both. Travel and tourism has other downsides which make it worth reducing it, like the fast spread of diseases for example.
The difference between removing plastic straws and reducing air travel is that reducing air travel would have an impact.
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Degrowth, and “everyone should just do without X” is such an easy solution. Too bad for you we don’t live in a political system where you guys can pass such unpopular policy and force the majority (who wants improving living standards) to just ‘own nothing and be happy,’ trading all the things they like for promises that the climate will be fixed.
And other countries will also choose to keep their privileges and climate change will not be reduced anyway.
So no tourist travel for the poor or middle class, just the elite rich? And no tourist income for the poor and middle class? This is a policy only the top .1% will enjoy.
But the purpose of money is exactly to be a currency to be spent on choices. And, I must unfortunately repeat myself with regards to what I wrote nearby, externalities can be charged as a cost - and it is probably the way to handle it. "You pollute, you pay" - then, you acquire money to invest it, especially in activities with downsides.
I don't support the idea as described, but playing devil's advocate presumably it would shift demand towards train and boat travel. That would push tourism closer to home and largely eliminate visiting other continents for those who couldn't either afford the air travel tax or to take several months off of work if going by boat. But it wouldn't eliminate tourism by any means. Even the poor could still easily travel the better part of a given continent.
Exactly. The travel permits will still be easy to get for the elites and their friends. In fact I bet even the climate change academics, and their friends and anyone they went to school with, will be able to get their travel permits just fine. You and me though? F your family, you’ll never see them again. The climate simply can’t spare it.
These people are so out of touch it’s bananas.
I didn't say tax everyone the same amount. Make it hurt. Tax the elite a million per flight.
And yes, no tourist income. It's dirty money.
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Electrified high speed rail solves this, with flying reserved for transoceanic needs. Private jets should not exist outside of scientific, medical, or other non luxury/personal use cases. Travel and tourism will always be with us, and should be imho. Carbon taxes, laws, whatever is needed to accomplish it.
> should not exist outside of
Externalities can be made to bear a cost.
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> Electrified high speed rail solves this
Curious -- what speed are you assuming for such a high speed rail?
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Saw a recent post about an electric plane - was pretty sweet let me dig it up. $5 worth of fuel!
> https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-comp...