Climate Change

I have been an active advocate on environmental matters for many years so I was pleased to see Virgin offering carbon offsetting on their booking system.

I then looked at the scheme and its cost.

The scheme does seem to be good – it does genuinely save carbon emissions but the cost is something that I have considerable concerns about.

I am about to fly to MCO UC so that is some 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide – OK I can roughly agree with that – but the offset cost Virgin charge is some £40.

I know of another Carbon savings scheme – also gold standard – that is run by Fauna & Flora International - a very well respected organisation, a look at who governs it makes that clear. It runs schemes such as in the Awacachi corridor in conjunction with Johan Eliasch’s organisation Cool Earth

This scheme allows you to offset 130 tonnes of CO2 for only £35 - £50.

So I have offset my next 3 years of flying for about the same as Virgin suggest for a single flight!
Instead of Virgin’s scheme, at £10 a tonne, CoolEarth does the same for 29p a tonne….

Taking this a little further, I did a calculation on Virgin Atlantic’s whole fleet.
They use about 7,000 tonnes of fuel a day – equivalent to only 27 acres of rainforest.
So for about £2,000 a day Virgin Atlantic could offset its total flying Carbon emission.
About £3/4million a year: less than 2% of annual profit or less than £2 on each ticket.

[One problem – the Bearded One seems to have been badly advised – the biofuels that he talked about – they are destroying rainforest to grow sugar-cane – to make biofuels……..someone needs to show him the math….]

What do you think? – Would you be more likely to fly Virgin if they were 100% carbon Neutral? Or would you be willing to pay an extra £2 on a ticket to make your flights 100% carbon neutral?
If you fly on business, how would your company like to be able to claim their flights were Carbon Neutral?

[mitchja]

What I can't understand though, with the new VS system, is why Upper and Premium Economy pax should pay more than economy pax [:?]

Each pax is on the same A/C producing the same CO2 so why do some seats produce more CO2 than others [:w]

Can we also please be careful here as there is a difference between carbon (C) and carbon dioxide (CO2)

The basic combustion process occuring in an engine produces water and carbon dioxide not pure carbon:

CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O

CH4 = methane
02 = oxygen
H20 = water

The other problem with bio-fuels is that they freeze and go solid at the temperatures experienced at high altitude.

They also have to be completely free from water which would again freeze and go solid at altitude and as bio-fules come from natrual sources, they do contain more water which has to be removed.

Ordinary aviation fuel has very stringent tests performed on it to make sure no water is present.

Regards

[Bazz]

Originally posted by mitchja
What I can't understand though, with the new VS system, is why Upper and Premium Economy pax should pay more than economy pax [:?]

Maybe because it is assumed that they can afford it? [:?] Or maybe because they are taking up more space per head and have a larger baggage allowance? [:w]

[mitchja]

Can I also just say that I'm not 100% against reducing CO2 emmisions but I do think the aviation industry is being made out to be the bad guys in all this though as when you consider how much CO2 the average home generates, together with industry and cars, they are not much better.

I've recently switched from a petrol car to my first diesel car (I'm never going back to petrol now either as a tank of diesel takes me almost twice as far as petrol did), having worked out my CO2 emmisions based on my annual milage, I've reduced my emmisions by about 1.5 tonnes per year which offset my VS return flight to ORD I did a few weeks ago.

OK not much on it's own but if everyone did this, it could start to make a difference.

Edit to add after thinking about this a bit - mind you, will it make a difference though as I sold my old car on, so that is been driven around by someone else but my new car was brand new so that's 1 extra car on the road so technically I havn't made any difference have I even though I have reduced my footprint I havnt reduced the overall footprint, I've actually made it worse [:?]

This is the problem with this whole climate change thing....

I dont think paying money to these schemes really does make any difference, if anything it might make people feel slightly better about themselves buts thats all.

Regards

[Bazz]

Originally posted by Bill S
... Or would you be willing to pay an extra £2 on a ticket to make your flights 100% carbon neutral?...

Personally I would but I am not deluded into thinking this will make an iota of difference to global warming. If all jet aircraft were carbon neutral this would be small beer indeed when compared to the carbon footprint of the emerging economies and damage caused by deforestation of our rain-forests.

Originally posted by Bazz
Personally I would but I am not deluded into thinking this will make an iota of difference to global warming. If all jet aircraft were carbon neutral this would be small beer indeed when compared to the carbon footprint of the emerging economies and damage caused by deforestation of our rain-forests.

I'm with Bazz on this one - while I do what I think is sensible, reduce waste, cut down on packaging, try to eat seasonal food even, drink wine from Europe (OK I lied about that one), make sure I don't build any concrete structures (oops [:p]) ... I would like to see some sense of priority here. I mention concrete because the manufacture of concrete produces about 20% of global CO2 emissions. Wow. But no one frets about that, instead its airlines and how far your water came from!

Bazz - I agree! But this is very much a PR game.
The Anti's (Anti everything and everyone with more than they have) will always attack Aviation.
This would be one way to deflect that attack - for very little cost!

Politically Climate Change is a BIG issue.
Somehow we need to deflect the attack - or else we will have major taxes imposed.
UK cannot impose tax unilaterally but there are clear moves for a major EU legislation to tax Aviation in the name of Climate Change.

edit addition:
Business class seats are usually calculated as 2x economy for CO2 - more space therefore more fuel.
Almost all calculations assume weights are converted to CO2 equivalents - carbon and hydrocarbon weights are converted to the CO2 that they produce. Avgas is calculated rather differently - the UN bunch believe that jet fuel burnt at altitude has a greater effect on climate change. It is believed to have a mutltiplier effect due to the water vapour produced. So they multiply the jet CO2 by 2 or 3! (Virgin 2 ; UN 3!)

Interestingly jet aircraft are actually very efficient means of transport - the new 787 when at 80% loading gets the equivalent of 117 miles per gallon for each passenger! Rather better than a car or even a bus or train ...... until you add the multiplier factor!

Originally posted by Bill S

UK cannot impose tax unilaterally but there are clear moves for a major EU legislation to tax Aviation in the name of Climate Change.

Well at least David Cameron finally got that after his silly posturing.

One of the difficulties is the perceptions of the media. Many people are convinced on certain aspects of carbon emissions but are quite wrong.

Let me give a few examples of misconceptions:
Which forms of transport are the "worst" for carbon emission?
Most people would be very certain that aircraft are much worse than trains and cars.
The actual figures are available - a few minutes search on the web.
One of the factors that we must consider is the number of people typically in a particular vehicle - clearly a car with 4 people in is almost 4 times as economical (in carbon terms!) as a car with only the driver. But most cars only have 1 or two passengers.
Aircraft typically have 80% or higher occupancy.
Trains vary through the day and particularly between local and intercity services.
The average bus - about 20% or less (except at rush hour)

The only figures that should be compared should be the fuel burn (carbon produced) per passenger.
A car that gets 40mpg with 1 driver gets 40mpg per passenger - with two in it gets 80mpg per passenger etc. A Bus might only get 5mpg but if it has 20 passengers then it gets a comparative figure of 100mpg (per passenger) - a full bus gets 200mpg equivalent.

Now lets compare the different forms of transport in terms of mpg per passenger.
A 40mpg car (1 person) - 40mpg
A train (SE published averages) - 60mpg
A 40mpg car (2people) - 80mpg
An intercity train - 110mpg
A modern longdistance aircraft - 117mpg

A bet that last figure is a bit of a shocker!
It is the figure for a Boeing 787 at 80% occupancy.

Continuing the list:
A 40mpg car (4 people) - 140mpg (heavier so I knocked a bit off!)
A full Bus (in town) - 200mpg
A people carrier 30mpg,8pass) - 240mpg
A full long distance bus (10mpg)- 400mpg

That gives a very different perspective- BUT :
It's a little more complicated:
Most current longhaul aircraft only get about 90mpg - but they can have higher occupancy. Shorthaul aircraft use much more - aircraft are much more efficient at cruising altitude and they use the equivalent to 250 flying miles just climbing - so fly from London to Newcastle and the carbon output doubles!
It also matters where the carbon is output and what comes out of the exhaust with it!
It is generally suggested that aircraft output should be tripled - but this figure is certainly disputed.
The emission from the new aircraft is much cleaner - but a hard-line approach would be to double the carbon - half the mpg down to about 60!

There is also a problem with the vehicles themselves!
Carbon is emitted both in manufacture and servicing - this must be divided across the miles travelled in their lifetime!

This is the argument behind the (probably correct!) claims that a 4x4 Jeep is more carbon friendly than a Prius!
A £10,000, 40mpg car that has a lifetime of, say, 5 years, doing a typical 10,000 miles a year burns 1,250 gallons fuel.
About £5-6000 worth of fuel - most of this value is Tax in the UK! A high proportion of the £10,000 cost is fuel used in manufacture of the metals, parts etc - and this is taxed at a lower rate!

So a car's fuel is the smaller part of its carbon cost!
But keep it twice as long and the manufacture part is halved!

Some food for thought!
It is only with careful understanding that we can truly start to protect the environment!

Sorry GJ - off on my hobbyhorse!
But its the facts and figures that we need to counter the attacks that are being made on many of us - and what we enjoy - in the name of so-called climate change.

Originally posted by Bill S
Sorry GJ - off on my hobbyhorse!
But its the facts and figures that we need to counter the attacks that are being made on many of us - and what we enjoy - in the name of so-called climate change.

Thanks Bill - I recall that one about a 747 that burns something like 0.01 gallons per person per mile when cruising. As someone on the telly once said, not a lot of people know that. Hope they do soon!

Reducing carbon emissions on the 'demand side' is akin to trying to compress a balloon by squeezing it in the middle: Almost everything that you do to try to do to reduce emissions have a minimal net effect when the full consequences of your actions are 'rippled' through the economy.

Carbon offsetting, by planting trees, is the exception but it is probably much less effective than is claimed. In any case it is something of a futile gesture against the backdrop of
expanding world economies and population growth.

For the individual carbon offsetting serves to assuage personal guilt and for VA its a way of pre-empting mounting critism in this 'climate of hysteria' that has been whipped up by sections of the environmental lobby. I am referring to their pointless victimisation of individual persons and companies(SUV owners, air passengers, Macdonalds etc)not to the legitimate concern over climate change.

The only plausible way of reducing carbon emissions is on the 'supply side' eg 'Carbon Credits' and only then if it agreed internationally and rigorously enforced.

And if you share my cynism of politicians and their ability to bring about such an international accord, then I refer you GJ's conclusions earlier in this post.

[Bazz]

If the math really stacks up at only £2.00 per flight, I think VS should bite the bullet now, bang a carbon neutral surcharge on every ticket and take the initiative in this argument!

I would have no problem whatsoever with this course of action.

[soapbox mode on]
What does concern me more is the lip service governments are paying to the real problem that affects all of mankind and the easy targets (not talking about goals here) they are going after simply because of the cheap publicity this produces, at the same time actually having little benefit save for bolstering their own, already over inflated, egos![soapbox mode off]

I wouldn't be more likely to fly VS, but it certainly gives VS a competitive edge in the media frenzy that is climate change.

45.

I haven't searched it for anything on planes, but a couple professors from the Earth and Environmental Sciences school here at my university recommend checking out realclimate.org (it takes a while to load and sometimes won't..). It's basically a blog, but written by a group of Climate scientists. They debunk current news items and such.

Just thought you might be interested.

I'm glad VS is at least trying to make a difference like with the whole "towing to the runway" stuff. Even though it'll be difficult to cut down on emissions made by the actual flight, it'll be beneficial to cut down or completely remove pointless waste pollutants that don't benefit anyone.

Towing to & from the runway is a good idea - saves over 2 tonnes of fuel when LHR is busy. Another option is to adapt the aircraft itself with such as Wheeltug

One of the best Carbon savings would be extra runways - consider how much fuel is wasted while waiting for a slot to land at LHR. Personally I believe that there should be a severe financial penalty imposed on BAA for any landing or takeoff delays that are not proven to be due to "acts of God" - this must be coupled with the extra runway - but slots must be limited to achieve no delays.

Climate change science will always be controversial - there is far too much academic competition for funds - look at almost any fund application and there will be a mention of climate change - the magic words!

realclimate.org - good site to put things in perspective.

I do not think it particularly matters......putting the fireproof suit on.....
CO2 IS going up - it may be due to climate change - it may be as a result of climate change - but its not a good thing - it does increase global temperatures. That makes it a no-brainer that we should do what we can to reduce emissions.

That does not, however, mean that we should destroy our quality of life or destroy our environment to do it!

[Bazz]

Originally posted by Bill S
...One of the best Carbon savings would be extra runways - consider how much fuel is wasted while waiting for a slot to land at LHR. Personally I believe that there should be a severe financial penalty imposed on BAA for any landing or takeoff delays that are not proven to be due to "acts of God" - this must be coupled with the extra runway - but slots must be limited to achieve no delays.

I agree with the extra runways Bill but you have to overcome the NIMBY effect and with landlocked airports such as LHR and LGW that presents a real problem. As far as imposing penalties on BAA, good in theory but surely they would simply pass those costs onto their customers, the airlines and retailers and thus us, the pax?