Is This The Way To Travel Green -- By Air?

There's no way around this one: travel by air is bad for the environment. I recently went to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, which was a fantastic experience for a great number of reasons, but in the end I couldn't help feeling guilty for inflicting a sizable carbon footprint, ostensibly in the name of a green news site, no matter how many light rails and buses (and bikes and sidewalks) I took when I got there.

So how do we reduce the impact of air travel?

Well, here's a start -- a company claiming to be the first green airline. Sure, they only go between Portland and Seattle (which gives them a serious head start in the green thing) but, well, here:

The airline, which opened up shop in June and uses a fleet of three small planes to shuttle passengers between Portland International and Seattle's Boeing Field, has partnered with the Columbia Land Trust, a big name in Pacific Northwest land conservation, to offset all emissions generated by its flights.

Rather than buying into a traditional offset scheme, SeaPort is getting green by donating the cash that it would otherwise spend on offsets to the Columbia Land Trust's Working Forest Initiative, which works to save large tracts of forests in the Northwest from commercial development.

But where the PC-12 really shines is in its fuel consumption, or rather its lack of fuel consumption. The average flight burns just 51 gallons, which means that even a small upstart like SeaPort can afford to throw down cash for the emissions it cranks out.

So let's see, on the road, that's 174 miles, the car sitting my parents' garage gets about 24 miles to the gallon, that's 7.25 gallons, times nine passengers, that's 65.25 gallons, so if we were all driving identical copies of my well-loved 1994 Volvo 850, separately, yeah, it's actually better to fly SeaPort.

Of course, you start carpooling and things change.

Read the full Wired story here

Comments

[green traveler]

There are a number of ways to travel green - check out www.rezhub.com for Green Travel.

[bedarra]

it seems inevitable that we will see the end of major airline traveling within a few generations. if they are charging for checked baggage and food to keep their costs competitive, i am thinking this is a last ditch effort before bankruptcy.

[DMSmith]

Fire the engines with bio-diesel. My car runs better by far on bio-diesel than on petro-diesel. There's no reason for not fueling planes with it. Virgin Air is starting to do it.

[greentexas]

This also doesn't count the additional overhead associated with air travel:
1) You most likely will drive to and from each airport on either end (4 trips) Many airports are 40+ miles roundtrip from town.
2) The pilot and crew has to drive to and from the airport at least once per day.
3) The grounds crew, maintenance crew, check-in staff, baggage crew, etc. that make the flight possible must commute.
4) There are lots of vehicles driving around the tarmac all day refueling, bringing food, etc.
5) If any seats on the plane are empty, your fuel efficiency per passenger drops.
7) 28 MPG/passenger is beaten by just about any decent fuel efficient passenger sedan.
8) As you point out, if you carpool, even a crap-mileage SUV with 2 passengers can probably beat 28MPG/person.

[kgb999]

OK, but by that measure - you also need to figure in what it take to keep a car on the road. At the very least keeping a gas station open - with a manager and crew all driving at least one trip a day; and the trucks bringing supplies and more fuel to sell. If you want any food on your trip, it's not only an entire restaurant crew, but also the power and other utilities to keep the establishment open and the fuel it takes for the daily delivery of supplies(and the truck driver probably drives his personal vehicle to the depot). Now the gas station or restaurant isn't busy - it's footprint-per-customer is much higher. Then there is the road lighting, and the cost of maintaining the roads with the cascading associated carbon footprint.

Ultimately, the associated costs with road travel are actually higher than air travel if you calculate it using your logic.

[TXfemmom]

America has been stupid in not upgrading and using electric high speed trains, as the Europeans do.

[ZeroBama]

America is far to big for high speed trains to be used in a big way. A long trip in Europe is 300 miles. If would cost many times what it would save and not many people would use it.

[KillTheMessenger]

This plane flies a 185 mile route. Try again.

That not many people in the US are using high speed trains has a very simple reason: there are none.

The cost of implementing train systems is not any higher than the cost to maintain highways or build airports. With rising fuel costs air travel becomes an economic loser for all but business travelers. What is more troubling is that even business travelers are cutting back and that historically they used to pay for the cheap seats on the plane, too. So with every business traveler less, there is one less tourist who gets a cheap flight.

Double the cost of oil again (which will happen sooner than later) and domestic flights will become unaffordable for most people for most reasons, including business which can use telecommuting and conferencing for its needs.

Of course we will still travel by air, WHEN WE MUST. But the kind of leisure travel that we have become accustomed to will be gone.

Now, we can try to find ways to bring it back (at least on some level) by building high speed train lines or we can just adjust to the situation that in a country the size of the US people are prisoners of their own geography.

[KillTheMessenger]

9 passengers, 185 miles, 51 gallons of jet fuel (that's close to 60 gallons of gasoline, right?).

Makes roughly 28 miles/gallon*passenger equivalent. Not that great. Maybe good for a plane, but a far cry from an electric high speed train which can do ten times better and is way more comfortable to use.

[kgb999]

That's a really cushy airplane. For luxury air travel - this is probably the greenest option out there.

[KillTheMessenger]

I have been in "very cushy" airplanes (business class and first class, very first row of the 747 nose cone, which is HUGE) and would prefer pretty much any local commuter train to all of them. I don't like the tube feeling that comes from being confined to small volumes. And this one does not look particularly large.