Research: Airliners can be more eco-friendly than trains
Flying cars bound to be greener than normal ones, surely
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Research carried out by boffins in California appears to have seriously undermined a major piece of received wisdom regarding transport: namely, the belief that railways are more eco-friendly than airliners.
The cage-rattling analysis comes from profs at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Rather than merely considering the carbon emissions resulting from fuel burned, the researchers considered every ecological impact created by having a given means of transport. Carbon or other greenhouse-gas emissions resulting from manufacture of concrete and steel, generation of electricity, manufacture of rolling stock etc. were all accounted for with respect to railways: and in the case of aircraft, building of airports and other associated infrastructure was included along with manufacture of the planes and so on.
According to the Berkeley boffins, the added greenhouse burden of construction, manufacturing, supply chain etc. etc. adds 155 per cent to the impact of railways, compared to "tailpipe emissions" arising in use. For road vehicles the increase is 63 per cent. But for aircraft it's just 31 per cent - the low figure being partly because aircraft emit a lot of exhaust in service, and partly because they need relatively little infrastructure, materials and so on.
What this adds up to, according to the engineers, is that the highly energy-efficient light-rail system in Boston - where a lot of electricity is fossil generated - has the same environmental impact when half full as a medium-sized airliner with 38 per cent occupancy. The virtuous public transport system is actually more environmentally damaging per passenger mile than the fuel-guzzling jet, even at somewhat higher occupancy.
We here on the Reg flying-car desk are particularly bucked by this news, obviously, as it would seem to lend support to our hypothesis that flying cars could be greener than normal ones. Or anyway, greener than trains running half empty.
The Californian engineers' paper is published online (free) today, in the journal Environmental Research Letters. ®
COMMENTS
Research FAIL
They're comparing to rail infrastructures which already exist.
Sure, you want to compare a new airport and flying route to a new rail infrastructure, then fine. But most countries already have a rail infrastructure in place, so this is bollocks.
Different tech for different purposes
Airliners can be more efficient on long haul perhaps, but that is only because the huge take-off cost can be offset by a long cruise time.
A 747 uses more fuel in take off as it does in an hour of cruising. On shorter distances, up to say 500km, that really messes up the numbers.
Use trains for commuter transport and aircraft for long haul.
Flying cars
Lewis - Did I miss it, or did you fail to account for the adverse air-quality effects and the, um , "environmental impacts" of all the crashing and burning the flying cars?
-Rick
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