Letters to the Editor
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@ DanielSh
First off, I want to thank Salon for its renewed interest in the environment and climate change issues. These are exactly the type of thought-provoking articles and letters I have come to expect from Salon.
Now, DanielSh: Would that it were that easy. Here's what concerns me about plug-in cars: If I start plugging in my car in lieu of going to the gas station, aren't my utility bills going to go through the roof? And doesn't the electricity in my house have to be powered with something that is more than likely ultimately fossil-fuel-based?
Solar power has a lot of promise, but right now, solar electric power is 50 times more expensive than conventional power (solar thermal is a different story, but it's still not great). The NYT ran an article a couple of days ago on solar power. It's easy enough to say, "Cut down on coal emissions," but that's pretty much all the Chinese have. The Chinese are currently producing a large proportion of the solar PV panels in the world, most of which are promptly shipped to Germany. The industry that produces them is predominantly coal-powered.
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SNL's distractor
There's an animated sketch in Saturday Night Live called Distractor, a super hero which always conveniently takes away the people's attention from issues that matter. When chemical pollution was the biggest issue back in the early 80s, Distractor convinced environmentally conscious people that the problem was, of all things, disposable diapers. Today when the biggest emissions of carbon dioxide are from cars and industry, Distractor is trying to convince us that the problem is air travel. How gullible can we be?
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Flying is efficient, according to this article!
Yet even on today's full flights with passengers crammed into small seats, flying packs a big climate punch. For a long trip, like a transatlantic flight on an average-size plane, each passenger is responsible for sending .39 pounds of CO2 per mile into the atmosphere, according to the World Resources Institute's Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative. By that measure, flying direct from Denver to London and back puts about 3,600 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent to driving a Toyota Prius hybrid 10,000 miles.
Assuming one could drive a Toyota Prius in a straight line from Denver to London (which is impossible), the distance is 4680 miles. 4680 x 2 [round trip] = 9360 miles. 9360 miles, assuming it was possible, or desirable (anybody want to drive a Toyota Prius for a week straight to get from Denver to London?).
I'd say that air travel sounds relatively efficient, if you ask me. -
The answer for jumpyd and NineNine
It says 39 pounds for one person, 3600 for all, which is equivalent to 10,000 miles in a Prius.
A Prius can hold 5 passengers and not a lot of luggage. The airplane holds 92.
It's a very misleading comparison. It makes me wonder about the rest of the article, where else does it mislead?
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captain - NY times is wrong as well
SOlar thermal CAN BE cost effective. It suffers from the same problem wind power did 20 years ago. As manufacturers produce more and more of an item they can produce it more cheaply (this has not happened with photovoltaic energy because PV requires the use of scrap silicon from the electronics industry which is in limited supply) . They also can improve the technology incrementally in a way that can't be done in the laboratory. 20 years ago wind energy was 25 c/kwh, now it is less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Has the technology improved ? yes. But more importantly manufacturing techniques have improved in a way to make it cheaper. In southern california there is 300 MW of solar thermal capacity that was manufactured for 20 years ago. It produces electricity for 12 cents a kilowatt hour. Scale that production up 20 to 30 fold and you can easily get the cost down to a level acceptable to most americans.
Is solar energy enough. No. Solar cannot provide what folks in the utility industry call "base" load. That is load that is available 24/7 come rain or shine. (Solar thermal is better than wind or photovoltaics in this regard because one can store energy in a heated working fluid which can be used for short periods of rain etc. - this is the reason California Edison has kept their plant running for over 20 years) We need a global campaign to replace coal with nuclear powered plants to provide a base load. We have 500 nuclear power plants in the world right now. Add another 1500 in the next 30 years at a cost of 2 to 3 trillion dollars ( the global economy over this period of time will total 1500 trillion dollars) and you can eliminate coal powered plants and cut greenhouse gases by 40% globally.
China can easily afford to buy this technology from the west and if they don't we and the Kyoto signers can always decide not to trade with them. We will have to subsidize India in order to make it happen in their country.
Finally concerning plug in hybrids. Yes it takes a lot of electric energy to keep them going. However even if all of your electric plants are fossil fuel based (particularly natural gas fired powered electric plants) the amount of fossil fuel energy required to run an electric car for a mile is less than half as much as that required to operate a gasoline powered car. Internal combustion engines are extremely inefficient when compared to electric engines and electric power plants.
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Finally
So glad this is becoming part of the conversation. I remember the first time I was flying across country and saw another jet pass just below us (1000 feet seems like a lot until you see a plane zoom under you that close). It was pouring out black smoke like a garbage truck. I had always seen jets from the ground, where all that's visible is that pristine vapor trail, but let me tell you if you haven't seen it already-- up close, it's pure diesel smoke.
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Ask the Pilot, Dammit!
KM made one goof in this article, stating that planes burn a lot more fuel on the ascent and the descent. Did anyone think of checking this with Salon's own Patrick Smith? It is true that planes burn tons of fuel (literally) as they muscle their way up to 7 miles above sea level at the maximum power their engines can sustain. The descent, however, is pure Isaac Newton. To oversimplify, the pilot throttles back and lets the plane drop out of the sky. Reduced power equals reduced emissions, end of story.
Try this experiment at home: find something heavy, like a brick or a stone. Lift it over your head. Carry it for a while. Set it down. Which required the most energy? Which required the least?
On another note, I would propose that one way to reduce carbon emissions from air travel would be to eliminate weddings. I'm all for the idea of long vacations with few flights, but we've got 4 weddings to attend this summer, in 4 countries. Not only does that burn a lot of fossil fuel, but it is eating up every day of vacation time for the year. How we would love to take 3 weeks sprawled out on a beach and bobbing around the waves on a zero-emissions inner tube instead!