[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Saying Goodbye to Air Travel

[Bill Totten]

by Richard Heinberg

Global Public Media (May 14 2008)


The airline industry has no future. The same is true for airfreight. No
air carrier has a viable plan to make a profit with oil at current
prices - much less in years to come as the petroleum available to world
markets dwindles rapidly.

That's not to say that jetliners will disappear overnight, but rather
that the cheap flights we've seen in the past will soon be fading
memories. In a few years jet service will be available only to the
wealthy, or to the government and military.

Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic says he wants to use biofuels to
power his fleet of 747s and Airbuses. There are still some bugs to be
worked out in terms of basic chemistry, but it might be possible in
principle - if only we could make enough biodiesel or ethanol without
further driving up food prices and wrecking the soil. Even then it would
be very costly fuel.

Are there other options for powered flight?

Hydrogen could be burned in jet engines, but doing so would require a
complete redesign of our commercial aircraft fleet, and H2 would be
expensive to make - unless the growing trend toward more costly
electricity (as we phase out depleting, polluting coal and increasingly
scarce natural gas) can somehow be reversed.

Last year I was invited to give the keynote address at the world's first
Electric Aircraft Symposium. NASA and Boeing sent representatives, but
all told there were only about twenty in attendance. The planes being
discussed were ultralight two-seaters: that's the limit of current or
foreseeable battery technology. These might come in handy in a future
where they are the only option for emergency air travel (blimps need
depleting helium or explosive hydrogen). But forget about 300-seat
planes running on solar or wind power, ferrying middle-class vacationers
to Bali or Venice.

There are good reasons to cut down on air travel voluntarily: flying not
only swells our personal carbon emissions but spews carbon dioxide and
other pollutants into the stratosphere, where they do the most damage.
However, the worsening scarcity of the stuff we use for making jet fuel
takes the discussion out of the realm of optional moral action and into
that of economic necessity and personal adaptation.

I fly to educate both general audiences and policy makers about fossil
fuel depletion; in fact, I'm writing this article aboard a plane en
route from Boston to San Francisco. I wince at my carbon footprint, but
console myself with the hope that my message helps thousands of others
to change their consumption patterns. This inner conflict is about to be
resolved: the decline of affordable air travel is forcing me to rethink
my work. I'm already starting to do much more by video teleconference,
much less by jet.

Those who live far from family will be more than inconvenienced, as will
the hundreds of thousands who work for the airline industry directly or
indirectly, or the millions who depend on tourism or airfreight for an
income. These folks will have few options: teleconferencing can
accomplish only so much.

Our species' historically brief fling with flight has been fun,
educational, and enriching on many levels to those fortunate enough to
benefit from it. Saying goodbye will be difficult. But maybe as we do we
can say hello to greater involvement in our local communities.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/saying_goodbye_to_air_travel


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