Airplanes VS nature

[foxtrot_lima_yankee]

I just read on DE ANTWERPENAAR that airplanes are told to be the less ecological mean of transport, after the car.
I though thought that even the A380 was told to be more economical than a car?

[LX-LGX]

check this site: www.treesfortravel.nl

(it's a Dutch site with language switch to ENG).

[airazurxtror]

I just read on DE ANTWERPENAAR that airplanes are told to be the less ecological mean of transport, after the car.

Thus, the planes are NOT the less ecological mean of transport.
The car IS the less ecological mean of transport.
And moreover, there are far more people travelling by car than by plane.

What is the more ecological ?
The ship ? Difficult to take a ship to go from, say, Brussels to Rome, unless with a canal boat, and I am not sure.
The train ? Perhaps, but the HST (TGV) also use up a lot of electrical energy, made from coal or fuel, or nuclear energy, which, according to Greenpeace and the like, is not environment friendly either.
The most ecological mean of transportation is by feet - or the bicycle. Again, it's not very practical if you want to go more than 10 or 20 km away...
Let's stay home, like our ancestors in their cave !

[blackhawk]

A trip Brussels - London City and back by plane will emit 160 kg of CO², 11 times more than the train.

http://www.zakenreisnieuws.nl/news/?ID=19557

[Bruspotter]

Hello

A plane might be not so good seen from ecological point of view (anyway , still better than a car) but you have to calculate that by example also the fuel consumption in comparison with a car is quite the same or even less (relatively). You have to see it like this : imagine that all these people in that plane would drive the same distance each of them or even take , per couple in a car , now THAT would be really bad seen from ecological point of view. As well what concerns CO² emisson as fuel consumption.

Best regards: Yannick

[ElcoB]

Hello

A plane might be not so good seen from ecological point of view (anyway , still better than a car) but you have to calculate that by example also the fuel consumption in comparison with a car is quite the same or even less (relatively).
...

Influence of aviation on global warming is very complex.
Not only fuel consumption and emissions, but also construction, contrails to name a few have their influence.

In attempting to aggregate and quantify these effects the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that aviation’s total climate impact is some 2-4 times that of its CO2 emissions alone (excluding the potential impact of cirrus cloud enhancement).

This is measured as radiative forcing.
While there is uncertainty about the exact level of impact of NOx and water vapour, governments have accepted the broad scientific view that they do have an effect.

Accordingly, more recent government policy statements have stressed the need for aviation to address its total climate change impacts and not simply the impact of CO2.

Aviation and climate change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

To make aviation possible in the future, we must study the real problems in order to find real solutions. The narrative of the industry sometimes is deadly wrong.

[foxtrot_lima_yankee]

The full article, De Antwerpenaar issued on 1st April 2007

Duurzaam vliegen?
Het kan

Maak van uw stoel een groene stoel
Ook als u op reis gaat kan u rekening houden met het milieu. Duurzaam toerisme wil zeggen dat u tijdens uw reis respect hebt voor mens, dier en natuur. En dit begint reeds bij het vervoer naar uw bestemming.
Veel te vaak stappen we echter zonder nadenken op het vliegtuig. Dat vliegen niet bepaald gunstig is voor het milieu is algemeen bekend. Het minst vervuilende vervoermiddel is de fiets. Daarna komen de trein, bus, auto en op de laatste plaats het vliegtuig. Een vliegtuig stoot immers schadelijke gassen als CO2 en methaan uit. Het vliegverkeer is zeker mee verantwoordelijk voor de uitstoot van broeikasgassen en dus klimatveranderingen.

Sta dan ook af en toe eens stil bij het vervoermiddel dat u kiest. U boekt een kortbij vakantie? Kies dan voor een alternatief vervoermiddel. Naar Londen of Parijs hoeft u echt niet te vliegen, neem gewoon de trein. Natuurlijk kan dit niet voor verre bestemmingen. Alsu echt moet vliegen, maak dan van uw stoel een groene stoel.

Wat is een groene stoel?
Met het systeem van de groene stoel krijgt u de mogelijkheid om de schadelijke uitstoot van broeikasgassen van de gevlogen kilometers te compenseren. DIt gebeurt door de aanplant en bescherming van bossen wereldwijd. Groeiende bomen nemen namelijk CO2 op uit de lucht en zetten deze om in zuurstof waarmee het broeikaseffect wordt tegengegaan.
Organistaies zoals Green Seat en Trees for Travel bieden reizigers de mogelijkheid aan tot compenseren. Met het boeken van zo' n groene stoel betaalt u een kleine bedrag extra dat gebruikt wordt om bomen aan te planten. De prijs van de compensatie hangt af van de bestemming maar is meestal niet meer dan 5% van de ticketprijs. Bij een retourvlucht van Brussel naar Sidney bijvoorbeeld, is er een uitstoot van 3,68 ton CO2. Om deze uitstoot te compenseren moeten 184 bomen een jaar lang groeien. Uw bijdrage voor een groene stoel bedraagt en kleine 60 euro. Vliegt u naar New York en terug, dan wordt er 1.29 ton CO2 uitgestoten, zijn er 65 bomen nodig en betaalt u zo'n 20euro.

Verschillende reisorganisatoren, zoals Joker, Koning Aap, Baobab, Anders Reizen en nog vele andere, bieden u reeds de mogelijkheid om zo'n groene stoel te boeken. HIervoor werken ze samen met Green Seat. Vraag er zeker ook zelf naar bij uw reisagent. U kan ook gewoon een vlucht boeken en daarna via Trees for Travel uw uitstoot compenseren.

[foxtrot_lima_yankee]

Not quite sure about the trains being the next most efficient means of transportation after the bicycle.
How many trains do really travel fully loaded, or at least with a load factor of 50%?Not many, except for rush hours between Antwerp and Brussels.
A guy working at the NMBS told me once that stopping a train at a station costs more than 400€ in electricity only.
Moreover, trains are great blocks of heavy metals, and they are subject to a lot of aerodynamical drag as well as metal to metal frictions.(on the rails).
And as already stated by another member previously, electricity is for a great part extracted from petrol or coal, which are greenhouse gasses.

Compared to that, aircraft do burn fuel, but they travel with higher load factors and are more efficient thanks to their lighter construction.

Trains way between 200 and 800 tons, depending on the number of wagons carried...

[foxtrot_lima_yankee]

I forgot to mention the many stops a train has to make...

[blackhawk]

I forgot to mention the many stops a train has to make...

don't forget a train can cary up to 1750 people! But we have a real traindriver over here. MD11, where are you!!!

Maybe airline companies can include this 'green seat' thing into their booking system as an option (Some are already doing this?). So people can compensate the co2 emissions by clicking a radiobutton or whatever.

[ElcoB]

Not quite sure ...

Some more figures and explanations:
Fuel efficiency in transportation

[airazurxtror]

A trip Brussels - London City and back by plane will emit 160 kg of CO², 11 times more than the train.

I guess it's not taking into account, for the train, the fantastic amount of energy spent and of CO2 emitted
- to build some 350 km of twin-track fast railway line
- to build part or whole new railway stations at Brussels-Midi, Lille, Ashford, Waterloo and now King's Cross
- and, last but not least, to construct the "Chunnel" itself
And a lot of other side "benefits" for environment
- destruction of nature, fields, woods, etc : in all at least some 20 km2
- keeping in mind that siderurgy is a most polluting industry : many thousend of tons of iron and steel made into rails and put into reinforced concrete
The list is long.
As a conclusion : it's difficult to make a global calculation of environmental cost of any means of transportation.

[blackhawk]

A trip Brussels - London City and back by plane will emit 160 kg of CO², 11 times more than the train.

I guess it's not taking into account, for the train, the fantastic amount of energy spent and of CO2 emitted
- to build some 350 km of twin-track fast railway line
- to build part or whole new railway stations at Brussels-Midi, Lille, Ashford, Waterloo and now King's Cross
- and, last but not least, to construct the "Chunnel" itself
And a lot of other side "benefits" for environment
- destruction of nature, fields, woods, etc : in all at least some 20 km2
- keeping in mind that siderurgy is a most polluting industry : many thousend of tons of iron and steel made into rails and put into reinforced concrete
The list is long.
As a conclusion : it's difficult to make a global calculation of environmental cost of any means of transportation.

An airport has to be build too you know

[Avro]

And as already stated by another member previously, electricity is for a great part extracted from petrol or coal, which are greenhouse gasses.

Compared to that, aircraft do burn fuel, but they travel with higher load factors and are more efficient thanks to their lighter construction.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree on this comment. If we look at Belgium, electricity is not prodcued from petrol or coal in great masses.

55% of electricity in our country originates from Nuclear energy which isn't emmiting any CO2 (well very little if you take the extraction of the fuel into account). The other 45% are mostly produced from natural gas. Natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels and has a great performance in the combined cycle powerplants. For the rest we also have some renewable energies and still a little bit of coal (less than 10%).

This makes the electricty which the trains use far less polluting than any airplane flying around. This has nothing to do with the weight or the loadfactor of the train/aircraft.

It's a fact that electricty (at least in our contry ) is much more cleaner than the Jet-A fuel used in the planes.

Personally I think that the people should combine in a better way the means of transportations. On some segments it is clear that the train is far better ecologically than the airplane, while on other segments we only have the plane which is a viable solution.

Chris

[Avro]

- keeping in mind that siderurgy is a most polluting industry : many thousend of tons of iron and steel made into rails and put into reinforced concrete
The list is long.
As a conclusion : it's difficult to make a global calculation of environmental cost of any means of transportation.

Well of course it's difficult and one should take all aspects into account for a decent comparison. However, as Blackhawk said, you also need to built airplanes and airport facilities with tons of concrete, steel ...

As for the nature which has been destroyed, I can just think of Osaka airport. They destroyed a natural mountain in order to create the island where the airport resides....

I don't want to say that airplanes are bad compared to trains, I'm just trying to put it in an objective way..

Chris