Will flying ever be sustainable? | BBC Ideas

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By 2050, airlines are expected to carry about 10 billion passengers on flights

Globally, just 1% of the population generate half of all emissions from the aviation sector.

But can the aviation industry ever be sustainable?

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29 COMMENTS

  3. Airships are the only way round this problem at the moment. Really big ones. It was unfortunate that the Hindenburg disaster put us off this environmentally friendly mode of transport. Heavier than air transport is just a very inefficient way of staying aloft. And it's effect is probably far worse than you think. How can we be sure?

    The only time air traffic stopped since the 70's was for three days after 9 11. It's hard to get accurate data (a cover up?) but as far as I can fathom the data shows that once the skies cleared an appreciable effect on global warming within a day was detected (within hours) and the reverse once normal traffic returned. It was only US airspace but it had a trully global effect.

    For 50 years we've been constantly pumping co2 into the atmosphere from 10 kms up causing a thick blanket around the Earth which multiplies the effect several orders of magnitude EVERYWHERE as the greenhouse is substantially bigger due to the slow downward drift of co2 to the oceans where it is mostly absorbed.The few places where aircraft don't fly often are over Antarctica and the Himalayas. But it still spreads. And it's being constantly replenished.

    Ground based co2 emissions have a far lesser effect on the climate as a whole, as the co2 molecule is relatively heavy and sinks downwards into the oceans. Urban heat islands and surface emissions don't cause a worldwide smothering blanket of co2 10 kms thick. When I drive out of the city into surrounding woodland the change is noticeable. So it was post 9 11.

    We don't have accurate measurements at altitude but I am convinced that it is worse than the more localised effect of ground based emissions; co2 is a heavy molecule and so it takes a while to deplete downwards but it happened once. Only once.

    Ocean temperatures are rising too partly because of this but also the influence of industry on rivers and coastal areas, like a radiator. Arctic ice is largely gone from the north coast of Russia precisely because most Russian rivers run north dumping all that heat from the heavy inefficient industries warming the water of the Ob, Lena and Yenisei rivers. That doesn't happen in Canada, Alaska and Greenland, but i believe that 50 years of uninterrupted air traffic has contributed far more to global warming.

  4. "No matter how highly mechanised and self-powered, fossil fuels extraction requires a number of people – as if the process is executed by hands using buckets and ropes – by physics.

    Today, this number is 8 billion people – working flat out 24/7 – strong.

    In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.

    No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.

    No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.

    This universal truth applies to all systems.

    Energy, like time, flows from past to future” (2017).

  6. I think this 'GO GREEN' shit is just a waste of time when wars are still going on and some still breaking out. What's even the point of putting those efforts with this ongoing arms race which is eventually going to end up as a big war again?

  9. stop using coal power stations and stop manufacturing electric vehicles they pollute the most. it’s all about nuclear power and sustainable fuels. this is in the hands of the elite not the common person

  11. Fuel alternatives are : Syntetic fuel (recirculated CO2), small molten salt reactor and aluminium-air battery.

    Hydrogen is a non starter. Alcohol is a more safe fuel.

    The main problem is that politicians , environmentalists and journalist sabotage the green change.

  18. It is unlikely that mass transport via passenger jets will ever be sustainable. At the commuter end of aviation, electrically powered short range small aircraft are already flying. A massive increase in the energy density of batteries is required for much larger electric aircraft to built. That technology development may take many years, maybe decades which is outside the window of opportunity to limit the rise in temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. There is an assumption in this video that combustion based engines used for aviation can be used sustainably. Currently, combustion based aviation engines consume oxygen, fuel and produce a range of pollutants, with Co2 being one of them. Let’s see a more comprehensive explanation of the end to end fuel cycle of proposed “sustainable fuels”. How are all the pollutants managed including Co2?

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