carbon footprints

[mutantpoodle]

many articles in press and on media refer to the carbonfootprint incurred when someone they are writiing about has made a journey

writing about usually refers to criticising

eg someone the other day went from A to B and it was 4.5 tons of footprint

is that HIS share of the entire planes footprint or is that the entire plane emission

my point being that if its HIS share or a plane load then where does all that tonnage come from
quite apart from the fact that the plane was going anyway

[bungeejumper]

Not my field of expertise, but that seems on the high side:
https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.ht ... per%20hour.

For a distance of 926 km, the amount of fuel used [by a Boeing 737-400] is estimated to be 3.61 tonnes [1], including taxiing, take-off, cruising and landing.

Using a seating capacity of 164 [Wikipedia, viewed 28.2.08] and an average seat occupancy (or 'load factor') of 65% [2], this gives a fuel use of 36.6 g per passenger per km.

CO2 emissions from aviation fuel are 3.15 grams per gram of fuel [1], which gives CO2 emissions from a Boeing 737-400 of 115 g per passenger per km.

At a cruising speed of 780 km per hour [Wikipedia, 28.2.08], this is equivalent to 90 kg CO2 per passenger per hour.

The source says that a 747-400 doing long distances has about the same emissions per person per hour.

BJ

[gryffron]

So if a 737 emissions are 10 ton/1000km (rounded from bj's figures). Then 4.5 tonnes of emissions doesn't sound unreasonable for a small private jet flying a couple of thousand miles from Europe to the Middle East.

A commercial plane was "going anyway". Well it was only going because people chose to travel. If no-one wanted to travel, the plane wouldn't be going. All the individuals onboard are collectively responsible. Airlines pretty quickly pull flights from underused routes, or they'd go broke.

Gryff

[Lootman]

A commercial plane was "going anyway". Well it was only going because people chose to travel. If no-one wanted to travel, the plane wouldn't be going. All the individuals onboard are collectively responsible. Airlines pretty quickly pull flights from underused routes, or they'd go broke.

At Heathrow each airline has to fly at least 80% of its schedule or risks losing its slot pair. This means that in practice that flight is happening anyway. In fact during periods of low demand there are so-called "ghost flights" where the flight still takes place, just with no passengers.

And some routes sell on their schedule regardless of load factors. An example is the highly profitable LHR-JFK route. BA offers 10 flights a day, and many passengers are business flyers paying a lot for flexible tickets in premium cabins. Those flights are often nowhere close to full, but they do not need to be to make money. The appeal is the frequency and the fact that you can just show up and fly.

[Maroochydore]

In fact during periods of low demand there are so-called "ghost flights" where the flight still takes place, just with no passengers

Surely that's to make sure the plane is in the right place for the next part of it's schedule. Either an onward leg or a retun flight which will probably have paying passengers.

[Lootman]

In fact during periods of low demand there are so-called "ghost flights" where the flight still takes place, just with no passengers

Surely that's to make sure the plane is in the right place for the next part of it's schedule. Either an onward leg or a return flight which will probably have paying passengers.

No sometimes a BA plane will fly to another airport and back just to keep above the 80% waterline. BA generally flies to and from LHR, and not on multi-leg flights.

An exemption was granted to the 80% rule during Covid but that has lapsed. More:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... data-shows

[Mike4]

There is a pretty simple chemical equation to calculate to calculate the weight of CO2 created by burning X tonnes of aviation fuel.

ISTR a Jumble Jet burns about 150 tonnes of fuel flying from here to NY. I don't know the formula but ISTR the CO2 tonnage created is shockingly large.

Actually the figure appears to be 3kg of CO2 per kg of jet fuel burned. So a plane burning 150 tonnes of jet fuel produces 450 tonnes of CO2 for the trip. If there are 300 passengers, that is 1.5 tonnes of CO2 issued per pax.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2- ... _1085.html

[GoSeigen]

eg someone the other day went from A to B and it was 4.5 tons of footprint

is that HIS share of the entire planes footprint or is that the entire plane emission

As others have said it's not an unreasonable figure for an individual, though at 4.5tons I'd guess it was referring to the return journey, not one way, unless it was UK-NZ or a similar very long journey.

Some people are going places anyway, others travel just because they can (e.g. flying from Toronto to London for a pop concert, then back the next day) and there must be a range of "need to travel" in between the extremes.

In judging my own behaviour I take a conservative/equitable approach: is my flying necessary enough that it justifies the cost to the environment of all 8bn people on the planet if they had the same means as me and used the same justification to do the same journey?

Ashamed to say that often it hasn't been, it is a pure luxury that I indulge in as a privileged member of the 1%.


GS

[Loup321]

I have a very good book called "How bad are bananas?" which lists carbon footprints of so many things. It explains the assumptions made and gives personal viewpoints of the author. I think it's brilliant, and my daughter is using it for a school Science project at the moment.

Apparently, if it's cold outside and the house is nice and warm, it costs 3g of CO2e to open the front door and get inside. Daughter came in from school and said "That's another 3g of carbon!" most days the week she read that page.

[Lootman]

In judging my own behaviour I take a conservative/equitable approach: is my flying necessary enough that it justifies the cost to the environment of all 8bn people on the planet if they had the same means as me and used the same justification to do the same journey?

Ashamed to say that often it hasn't been, it is a pure luxury that I indulge in as a privileged member of the 1%.

Your "what if everyone on the planet did the same thing?" argument seems reasonable when it is something that everyone can do. But by your own admission, only 1% of everyone can do this!

The other variable is which class of cabin you fly in. Some people argue that flying in Business or First is more wasteful. And certainly those lie-flat seats can weigh 100-200 kg each. But on the other hand, a premium aircraft configuration carries fewer passengers. So whilst the carbon per passenger number will look bad, a plane with fewer passengers will need less fuel. The A319 that used to fly between London City airport and JFK had just 32 seats and was often only half full - probably the closest most people can get to the feeling of being in a private jet whilst flying commercially.

[csearle]

In judging my own behaviour I take a conservative/equitable approach: is my flying necessary enough that it justifies the cost to the environment of all 8bn people on the planet if they had the same means as me and used the same justification to do the same journey?

Ashamed to say that often it hasn't been, it is a pure luxury that I indulge in as a privileged member of the 1%.

Your "what if everyone on the planet did the same thing?" argument seems reasonable when it is something that everyone can do. But by your own admission, only 1% of everyone can do this!

The other variable is which class of cabin you fly in. Some people argue that flying in Business or First is more wasteful. And certainly those lie-flat seats can weigh 100-200 kg each. But on the other hand, a premium aircraft configuration carries fewer passengers. So whilst the carbon per passenger number will look bad, a plane with fewer passengers will need less fuel. The A319 that used to fly between London City airport and JFK had just 32 seats and was often only half full - probably the closest most people can get to the feeling of being in a private jet whilst flying commercially.

Funny thing though is the A319 is a short-haul jet that had to have auxiliary tanks fitted into the cargo hold in order to achieve the range to get to JFK from City with sufficient reserves. C.

[GoSeigen]

In judging my own behaviour I take a conservative/equitable approach: is my flying necessary enough that it justifies the cost to the environment of all 8bn people on the planet if they had the same means as me and used the same justification to do the same journey?

Ashamed to say that often it hasn't been, it is a pure luxury that I indulge in as a privileged member of the 1%.

Your "what if everyone on the planet did the same thing?" argument seems reasonable when it is something that everyone can do. But by your own admission, only 1% of everyone can do this!

I may be a privileged git but I try not to behave like one all the time. If there are environmental problems they are overwhelmingly the fault of people like me and one solution is absolutely simple: restrain your own consumption.

Do I remember correctly that 70% of anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions to date are a result of consumption in the USA alone? (And a similar figure would likely apply more generally to the 4% most wealthy humans.)

[Lootman]

Your "what if everyone on the planet did the same thing?" argument seems reasonable when it is something that everyone can do. But by your own admission, only 1% of everyone can do this!

The other variable is which class of cabin you fly in. Some people argue that flying in Business or First is more wasteful. And certainly those lie-flat seats can weigh 100-200 kg each. But on the other hand, a premium aircraft configuration carries fewer passengers. So whilst the carbon per passenger number will look bad, a plane with fewer passengers will need less fuel. The A319 that used to fly between London City airport and JFK had just 32 seats and was often only half full - probably the closest most people can get to the feeling of being in a private jet whilst flying commercially.

Funny thing though is the A319 is a short-haul jet that had to have auxiliary tanks fitted into the cargo hold in order to achieve the range to get to JFK from City with sufficient reserves. C.

And even then it had to stop at Shannon westbound to refuel in order to make it to JFK. Although part of that issue might be take-off weight restrictions at LCY due to its short runway. Eastbound was not a problem.

A350s with extra fuel tanks will be the key to non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York. 20 hour flights anyone?

[kempiejon]

Are we all OK with the idea the carbon footprint like the concept of litter bugs a way for the corporations causing the problem to make it the individuals fault? Wasn't it an oil company's PR firm that coined the phrase. It worked as here it's propagating that deceit.

[BigB]

Funny thing though is the A319 is a short-haul jet that had to have auxiliary tanks fitted into the cargo hold in order to achieve the range to get to JFK from City with sufficient reserves. C.

And even then it had to stop at Shannon westbound to refuel in order to make it to JFK. Although part of that issue might be take-off weight restrictions at LCY due to its short runway. Eastbound was not a problem.

A350s with extra fuel tanks will be the key to non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York. 20 hour flights anyone?

Take-off from London was half empty, as suggested due to weight and runway length. Shannon for a fill-up and pre-clear of US immigration while waiting.

Long ago Shannon was used by US bound 747s ex-Dublin, to fill their tanks. Dublin airport later updated, but for example still can't take an A380 apparently, which Shannon can.

[Lootman]

And even then it had to stop at Shannon westbound to refuel in order to make it to JFK. Although part of that issue might be take-off weight restrictions at LCY due to its short runway. Eastbound was not a problem.

A350s with extra fuel tanks will be the key to non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York. 20 hour flights anyone?

Take-off from London was half empty, as suggested due to weight and runway length. Shannon for a fill-up and pre-clear of US immigration while waiting.

Long ago Shannon was used by US bound 747s ex-Dublin, to fill their tanks. Dublin airport later updated, but for example still can't take an A380 apparently, which Shannon can.

Now you mention it, I have used DUB quite a lot and have never seen a A380 there. Emirates flies there but uses a 777. Google says the runway isn't long enough:

https://www.quora.com/Will-Dublin-airpo ... 2C600%20ft.

And yes, the US pre-clear at Shannon makes the stop more bearable. DUB has that as well of course. Arriving in the US as a domestic flight is a joy.

[BigB]

Take-off from London was half empty, as suggested due to weight and runway length. Shannon for a fill-up and pre-clear of US immigration while waiting.

Long ago Shannon was used by US bound 747s ex-Dublin, to fill their tanks. Dublin airport later updated, but for example still can't take an A380 apparently, which Shannon can.

Now you mention it, I have used DUB quite a lot and have never seen a A380 there. Emirates flies there but uses a 777. Google says the runway isn't long enough:

https://www.quora.com/Will-Dublin-airpo ... 2C600%20ft.

And yes, the US pre-clear at Shannon makes the stop more bearable. DUB has that as well of course. Arriving in the US as a domestic flight is a joy.

I was coming at it from the Shannon end - apparently its runway is long enough to be a Space Shuttle landing alternative !!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_Airport

[GoSeigen]

Are we all OK with the idea the carbon footprint like the concept of litter bugs a way for the corporations causing the problem to make it the individuals fault? Wasn't it an oil company's PR firm that coined the phrase. It worked as here it's propagating that deceit.

Amazing, someone who feels the same way I do.


When I was a programmer I started by doing everything in a linear fashion. I'd take a step at a time doing whatever was necessary to achieve the goal (and no more), and then stopped writing as soon as that was achieved.

One day I joined a team where object-oriented programming was used and we had some extraordinary, talented engineers. I worked with the code of one particular engineer who had written sets of functions to manage various tasks in the program. What struck me immediately was 1. no-one had actually used any of these functions yet, they had just been created ready for use and 2. he had functions in complementary pairs: add X - remove X, create Y -destroy Y etc.

It struck me straight away that a lot of what we do in life involves or should involve reversing what we previously did, also known in some contexts as cleaning up after ourselves. We go to work, we come back from work. We open the frigde door, we close the fridge door. We take off the toothpaste cap, we screw it back on. Sometimes we omit the cleaning up bit and annoy other people who are compelled to do our tidying up for us.

Some people are good at doing the tidying up steps, some not so good, in my case I'm not particularly good but I learned something when I read that engineer's code.


I think the way we allow companies to operate is a bit like the random linear way I used to work. Toy manufacturers can put batteries in toys but they don't have to collect them back and return to the manufacturer to be disposed of and recycled. They leave that mess for others to tidy up. Snack manufacturers put their snacks in plastic wrappers but they don't have to organise the cleaning up of their wrappers afterwards -- they allow it to be dropped as litter or expect someone else to manage a rubbish collection system.

It seems to me that it would be useful to force businesses to work in a similar way to my engineer colleague: to plan in advance both the creation of their products and the disposal at end of life; both the distribution and the collection -- and repair options wherever possible. Of course there is a cost to this extra effort but it seems entirely possible that, similar to situations like the prisoners' dilemma or tragedy of the commons, a bit of enforced cooperation in these areas would disadvantage a few businesses but the collective benefit would outweigh those extra costs.


And I agree entirely that in the absence of this system the messy businesses that create all the rubbish are entirely disingenuous in placing the blame on the consumer.

GS