Flying Low And Slow Reduces Greenhouse Gases
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11.27.07
The debate over Sweden's CO2 burden from travel, especially international budget air travel, continues with some news: last week the Swedish state department became the first in Europe to promise that starting next year it would offset the CO2 from its own international air trips.
The government will purchase offsets from UN Kyoto Protocol so-called Clean Development Mechanism projects - wind farms in China and biogas heating in Brazil were two examples Sweden's Environmental Minister Andreas Carlgren gave when announcing the plan. International flights of "a multi-lateral nature" will be the first to be eligible for offsets. Those are included in the 2008 state department budget and are projected to cost around two million crowns (US$321,000). Compare that to the budget line item for extra state department expenses for a rumored 2008 royal wedding between Princess Victoria and her betrothed Daniel Westling - 8 million crowns (US$1.2 million).
Oh, well, it is still a start. Carlgren said he wanted to demonstrate for Swedes that purchasing offsets is no big deal, and not even prohibitively expensive - perhaps a few hundred crowns more on a ticket. But the idea of offsetting our way to climate neutrality - is it even possible? More on that in an upcoming post. Meanwhile Swedish professor Stefan Gössling said that if the state is going to buy offsets, it should at least purchase 'gold standard' offsets which 42 different environmental and social organizations have endorsed as being minimally ecologically damaging and even beneficial to local populations.
In other news, a Swedish experiment with what is called 'green approach' is spreading from Stockholm's Arlanda airport to others both inside and outside the county. Green approach is teaching pilots to not fly too fast in order to avoid airport stack-ups and to more slowly and precisely decelerate on landing approach, which can save between 100 to 200 kilos of fuel and an average of 475 tons (correction: kilos!) of CO2 per flight. Göteborg's Landvetter, Malmö's Airport and Umeå's Flyplats are all instituting green approach over the coming months. Via ::Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish)
Green approach is teaching pilots to not fly too fast in order to avoid airport stack-ups and to more slowly and precisely decelerate on landing approach, which can save between 100 to 200 kilos of fuel and an average of 475 tons of CO2 per flight.
200 kg of jet fuel is a little over 64 gallons. 64 gallons of jet fuel put out about 1,350 pounds of CO2, or a little more than 2/3 of a ton.
To even put out 475 tons of CO2, an average commercial jet would have to fly over 18,500 miles.
You may wish to recheck your calculations.
475 tons (correction: kilos!)
Makes sense now. 150 kg (average of the range of savings you stated) of jet fuel will put out about 475 kg of CO2.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I think people should give more credit to airlines and their efforts to improve fuel utilization. It's not altruistic in the least, as fuel is a major variable cost for them. But in the end the result is good for the planet.
Blaming airplanes on IFR flights - that'll be all passenger and cargo operations - for "airport stack-ups" is like running a faucet at full blast in sink with a slow drain, and then blaming the water for spilling onto the floor.
The sky is not a very big place near an airport when all planes are directed to use the same airspace corridors and separated by minimum distances and times. No matter how many planes you put in the sky, too, you can only land or take off one plane every two minutes on a runway, and each gate at a terminal can only handle one airplane at a time.
To make matters worse, if there is a line of thunderstorms between the heavily-traveled airports, the routes of access are cut off like an avalanche blocking a highway; planes pile up in the air or on the ground until the path is clear. No matter how much you hate sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off, it is far less expensive to the airline and puts out far less CO2 than circling in the air in a hold until the way is clear or there's a slot open for landing.
We could save a lot more money, time, nerves, and CO2 with scheduling changes that don't try to put more airplanes into and out of an airport than it can physically handle. This requires a philosophy change at the airlines, though, from the current cut-every-employee's-throat-for-cheaper-fares operation that they have. Compared to their scheduling, green approaches are greenwash. (Unless you count the way airports change approaches to reduce the impact of their primary pollutant - noise - on the neighborhoods below. On that count, they've been going green long before it was fashionable.)
Given the consequences if my pilot makes an error on landing the plane, I'd prefer we concentrate on making management change and leave the pilots to concentrate on landing as safely as possible every time, instead of worrying about if it's green enough.