The shape of things to come?

2010-04-19T10:41:00+01:00

The ramifications of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull continue to rumble on as people suddenly find themselves stranded and reminded that the Earth is actually quite a big place. Meanwhile it's news that EU ministers co-ordinating a response has a video conference to discuss the response to the transport paralysis.

I find it interesting that the fact they had a video conference is news worthy. It implies that normally any time a bunch of European ministers need to discuss something they all de-camp and meet in a single physical locality. This is a measure of how far we have taken the ability to jet about for granted. While I'm sure there are good reasons to have conferences where close physicality to a mixture of people can result in useful side meetings I find it slightly disheartening that video-conferencing isn't used more routinely. Having said that the European project does ferry it's MEPs back and forth between two buildings every week so maybe I'm expecting too much. If Europe wants to take the lead on reducing the worlds carbon footprint it could do worse things than fixing up a few of it's inefficiences.

The news will no doubt spend the next few days reporting on stories of weary travllers making it back to the shores of old Blighty showing appropriate displays of Dunkirk Spirit. While we celebrate the return of out fellow countrymen to the this green and pleasent land I wonder if we'll take deeper stock of what the future without cheap and plentiful air travel will be like? Has anyone been in a supermarket the last few days and noticed the state of the fruit and veg section? This is the shape of things to come.

Statements of the bleeding obvious

2009-09-09T16:50:00+01:00

This little gem turned up in the news today. The suggestion that the rest of industry should cut greenhouse emissions even more to accommodate the growth in aviation is frankly silly. Aviation has to do it's part and certainly in the short-term this means less flying. In this context it's hard to see what building extra runways will achieve in the next 10 years.

Charlie Stross recently posted his analysis of what he could do to reduce his foot print. He was disappointed to realise that any effort he made locally was literally blown out of the water by air travel. Turning to my favourite climate change numbers reference I can see even the fullest most efficient plane works at around 37 kWh per 100 p-km, twice as efficient as me driving in my car on my own. So the lesson is rather simple physics, transporting mass from one end of the globe to another requires energy and that means its unsustainable at it's current growth rate. There is a lovely appendix at the back that examines the physics of air travel in more detail. The final conclusion is that although there may be scope for some improved efficiency in planes they are already getting close to what the physics will allow.

If we are going to travel to far away climes we need to start getting used to the idea of taking longer about it. We will also need a set of intercontinental underwater tunnels for those electric trains which are about the only way you'll get the efficiencies (6kw per 100 p-km) to make up for all those extra miles.

Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - green

The shape of things to come?

Statements of the bleeding obvious