planes aren’t as efficient as cars for the same mileage traveled
Again, that’s not true unless you’re talking about short distances for which plane travel is not even practical. A plane can carry up to 800 passengers to a destination. It would take 200 cars minimum to move the same number of people and their output would be nearly triple that of a plane. Cars use the same amount of fuel to move, start, and stop. Planes use most of their fuel use on takeoff and landing since they’re essentially gliders once in the air.
planes are the worst to transport both people and goods
Citation needed. You can’t just make claims like that without any kind of evidence considering that the statement is flat out not true.
Airplanes have a consumption equivalent of 3.5L/100km/passenger. A car with two passengers is equal to that, more passengers and cars win. Take more than CO2 into consideration? Looks even worse for planes as they don’t have an equivalent to a catalytic converter. Is 8.5T kilometers enough data?
A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation.
Man, that sure doesn’t look good for airplanes does it? Imagine if we started talking about leaded fuel still used for piston engines (but let’s not go there…)
The same amount of cargo can be transported much more efficiently by rail or by boat.
But hey, you’re just proving my original point right, “regular people” who travel by plane don’t want to be told that they too are part of the issue and that they should feel bad about their choice. Guess it’s too hard for you guys to imagine living like the majority of the world’s population that will never take a plane in their lifetime and that won’t be visiting anything past a few hundred kilometers away from where they live… Oh the agony! Right?
It’s funny cuz you don’t even realize that traveling by plane means you’re already part of an elite when looking at it on a global scale.
A car with two passengers is equal to that, more passengers and cars win.
Lies. Your own link shows that a plane’s consumption equivalent per passenger is 67mpg. Show me any car on the market, much less a majority of cars, that have a fuel efficiency of 67mpg. A hybrid Prius has a fuel efficiency of 52mpg. On top of that, the average drive in an automobile, light-duty truck, and semi-truck is 1.1 passengers with an average of 4 rides per day. There’s no way you can slice these numbers that shows that a car is more fuel efficient than a plane even with the most fuel-efficient vehicle much less the total number of cars out there that include much less fuel-efficient vehicles.
Man, that sure doesn’t look good for airplanes does it?
The same amount of cargo can be transported much more efficiently by rail or by boat.
You can’t just drop a claim like that and a link to multiple datasets without identifying what the evidence is. It’s not my job to do your research for you just because you dump some unspecified data on me. Which data set shows what you’re saying?
But hey, you’re just proving… blah blah blah
I never said any of that and it’s not my responsibility to ignore seeing my family so that another person feels better about also not seeing their family. If anything, you’re just proving the need to further make these technologies better to lower those numbers. It still doesn’t change the fact that there are much larger impact items than airplanes and there are less intrusive ones too.
I’m not denying that I’ve had the privilege to travel by plane. That doesn’t mean that I do it often or that I can afford anything other than coach and it also doesn’t invalidate my point in any way. I’m only arguing about the initial claim that was made. Whether I’ve been on a plane is beside the point.
Since you don’t seem to understand how fuel economy works and you don’t seem to understand that I’m comparing travels for the same purpose I guess I’ll have to make it extremely simple for you.
The average number of passengers/vehicle during the average drive doesn’t matter since it counts people going to work out to get grocery and what we’re talking about right now is people going on vacation so they’re more likely to go as a group and ride sharing also is a thing. People don’t stop going on their average drive because they went on vacation to Japan the week before.
Airplanes have a fuel economy of 67mpg/passenger. The number for a Prius you gave me is 52mpg/vehicle. They’re not the same kind of data, the Prius’ number needs to be converted to /passenger.
One passenger? Same as your number since there’s one vehicle and one passenger. If there are two passengers in the Prius the fuel used is divided by each passenger, they each use half of that fuel, that’s 52mpg/0.5 = 104mpg/passenger because the car’s fuel economy doesn’t change with the extra passenger.
(And just for the lulz, a Boeing 777 gets 82mpg/passenger and has a capacity of 388 passengers, let’s say the plane only had one passenger, that’s 82 / 388 = 0.21 mpg!)
That’s why the Suburban example was used, it gets 17mpg mixed (I’m even helping you here instead of just using highway mpg), with four passengers that’s… oh my… 68mpg! It beats planes! Know what’s the passenger capacity of a Suburban is? Up to 8. Need me to do the math on that or I’ve proven my point? Heck, someone else already explained all of that to you so I don’t know why I need to repeat it.
Since I’m arguing against people going on vacations by plane so dang much it makes planes look even worse because people use them to travel thousands of miles instead of hundreds of miles if they were to go on vacation by car. 67mpg over 1000 miles = 14.9 gallons of fuel or the equivalent of traveling 250 miles per passenger in the Suburban or 770 miles per passenger in the Prius. How far do you go on vacation in a car? How far do you go on vacation in a plane?
Regional flights (i.e. in smaller less efficient planes) are 500 miles on average in the USA
In the USA it’s over 1000 miles (1980km), Europeans and Canadians are even worse… Do you really need me to prove that it’s more efficient for a French couple to drive from Paris to Rome (1400km) instead of going on the average French international flight (2700km) for their vacation? Our even more realistically, from Paris to Milan (850km) this way both travels take a day? I used the French example because their distance traveled is at the lower end of the West European average so I’m being nice here.
It seems like you don’t understand how fuel economy works. Aviation is more fuel efficient no matter how you slice it and has been since the start of the millennium.
If your premise is that 52mpg/1 passenger = x mpg/3 passengers means that x is 104mpg/passenger then that means that 67mpg/1 passenger for a flight of 100 people is 6700mpg/passenger. You can’t divide for one and multiply for the other.
Also, planes get more fuel efficient the longer the trip because the majority of their fuel burn is on takeoff. Once they’re in the air, their fuel use is minimal and they lose the weight of the fuel as they continue which further makes it more efficient.
So no…your point is not clearer because air travel is more efficient than travel by auto in all cases except, again, the shortest distance travel where it’s not even practical to fly. You can try to limit your data to only trips with more than 3 people (the point where driving becomes more fuel efficient) and only for long distances but that means you’re only further scaling down the impact that making efficiencies has since that’s not really the most prevalent use for cars.
The 67mpg figure IS ALREADY PER PASSENGER! Do you truly believe a plane full of passengers only burns 15 gallons to travel 1000 miles? Why does a 777 need to carry 13 000 gallons of fuel then? By that logic that would be enough to travel 1 066 000 miles considering they get 82mpg/passenger when full of passengers (which you interpret as 82mpg/vehicle)!
6000 to 7500 kilograms of fuel per hour for a 777, gas weights 0.72kg/L, that’s 8300L of fuel burned per hour and I’m using the most advantageous number to help you! Typical cruise speed is 900km/h. That’s 108m for every liter of fuel, 410m per gallon, 0.25 miles per gallon. Hey, look at that, pretty fucking close to the 0.21mpg with a single passenger that I calculated with the official number, isn’t it?
I KNOW! You are missing the point! The only way your point bears out is if every car has 3+ people for every trip.
The only way what you said is actually true is 2 cases: 1) The car making the trip has 3+ passengers or 2) The total distance traveled is less than 200km. If the average passenger count for all car rides is 1.3 passengers, then how many of those rides do you think are 3+ passengers? If it was any significant amount, then that average count would be much closer to 3 and not a rounding error away from being 1! And on the other end, the average plane flight for travel is transcontinental. That means that replacing flights less than 200km with car rides isn’t going to make a dent either because that’s already what’s happening most often. Unless cars suddenly become able to drive across the Atlantic Ocean, you’re not making any changes by doing what you’re proposing.
Me: People should stop using planes to travel long distances and instead go on vacation close by and by car because it would be more efficient.
You: Most plane travel is long distance so it can’t be replaced by car!
Even when proven wrong with math and with multiple people telling you what you’re saying is completely missing the point, is wrong and your math makes no sense, you keep arguing!
You: People should stop going to stores to buy their food and should instead grow their food in their own backyards because it’s more efficient.
Me: That’s completely unrealistic and won’t make a difference because most people live in cities and don’t have backyards.
You: I’m only talking about the situation of people who have backyards!!
Me: If all of those people did what you’re saying, it wouldn’t even make a dent.
You: Multiple people are telling you that growing your own food is more efficient but you keep arguing!
I’m arguing because your point and your suggestion don’t change anything in any meaningful way while also introducing changes that make them a non-starter. How many times do I have to repeat the statement that there are more meaningful ways that won’t impede on people’s lives more than banning most commercial flights.
You also argued that cars are more fuel efficient than planes. They’re not. They only are in very specific scenarios that don’t reflect the reality of how people use cars at all.
Also when we switch to e-fuel flying becomes far better ecologically than trains and as there are already flights happening using e fuel and facilities to make it at scale being built we’d be foolish not to consider that in our planning.
Yes, but we have a ways to go before that is the norm. Even without that, though, planes are more fuel efficient than any cars or light-duty vehicles and it’s not really close.
Again, that’s not true unless you’re talking about short distances for which plane travel is not even practical. A plane can carry up to 800 passengers to a destination. It would take 200 cars minimum to move the same number of people and their output would be nearly triple that of a plane. Cars use the same amount of fuel to move, start, and stop. Planes use most of their fuel use on takeoff and landing since they’re essentially gliders once in the air.
Citation needed. You can’t just make claims like that without any kind of evidence considering that the statement is flat out not true.
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
Automotive transport makes up 12% of emissions - 4x that of airline travel.
Airplanes have a consumption equivalent of 3.5L/100km/passenger. A car with two passengers is equal to that, more passengers and cars win. Take more than CO2 into consideration? Looks even worse for planes as they don’t have an equivalent to a catalytic converter. Is 8.5T kilometers enough data?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
How about if we take contrails into consideration?
https://www.science.org/content/article/aviation-s-dirty-secret-airplane-contrails-are-surprisingly-potent-cause-global-warming
A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation.Man, that sure doesn’t look good for airplanes does it? Imagine if we started talking about leaded fuel still used for piston engines (but let’s not go there…)
https://tedb.ornl.gov/data/
The same amount of cargo can be transported much more efficiently by rail or by boat.
But hey, you’re just proving my original point right, “regular people” who travel by plane don’t want to be told that they too are part of the issue and that they should feel bad about their choice. Guess it’s too hard for you guys to imagine living like the majority of the world’s population that will never take a plane in their lifetime and that won’t be visiting anything past a few hundred kilometers away from where they live… Oh the agony! Right?
It’s funny cuz you don’t even realize that traveling by plane means you’re already part of an elite when looking at it on a global scale.
Lies. Your own link shows that a plane’s consumption equivalent per passenger is 67mpg. Show me any car on the market, much less a majority of cars, that have a fuel efficiency of 67mpg. A hybrid Prius has a fuel efficiency of 52mpg. On top of that, the average drive in an automobile, light-duty truck, and semi-truck is 1.1 passengers with an average of 4 rides per day. There’s no way you can slice these numbers that shows that a car is more fuel efficient than a plane even with the most fuel-efficient vehicle much less the total number of cars out there that include much less fuel-efficient vehicles.
The 5% number already includes contrails in it. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation
You can’t just drop a claim like that and a link to multiple datasets without identifying what the evidence is. It’s not my job to do your research for you just because you dump some unspecified data on me. Which data set shows what you’re saying?
I never said any of that and it’s not my responsibility to ignore seeing my family so that another person feels better about also not seeing their family. If anything, you’re just proving the need to further make these technologies better to lower those numbers. It still doesn’t change the fact that there are much larger impact items than airplanes and there are less intrusive ones too.
I’m not denying that I’ve had the privilege to travel by plane. That doesn’t mean that I do it often or that I can afford anything other than coach and it also doesn’t invalidate my point in any way. I’m only arguing about the initial claim that was made. Whether I’ve been on a plane is beside the point.
Since you don’t seem to understand how fuel economy works and you don’t seem to understand that I’m comparing travels for the same purpose I guess I’ll have to make it extremely simple for you.
The average number of passengers/vehicle during the average drive doesn’t matter since it counts people going to work out to get grocery and what we’re talking about right now is people going on vacation so they’re more likely to go as a group and ride sharing also is a thing. People don’t stop going on their average drive because they went on vacation to Japan the week before.
Airplanes have a fuel economy of 67mpg/passenger. The number for a Prius you gave me is 52mpg/vehicle. They’re not the same kind of data, the Prius’ number needs to be converted to /passenger.
One passenger? Same as your number since there’s one vehicle and one passenger. If there are two passengers in the Prius the fuel used is divided by each passenger, they each use half of that fuel, that’s 52mpg/0.5 = 104mpg/passenger because the car’s fuel economy doesn’t change with the extra passenger.
(And just for the lulz, a Boeing 777 gets 82mpg/passenger and has a capacity of 388 passengers, let’s say the plane only had one passenger, that’s 82 / 388 = 0.21 mpg!)
That’s why the Suburban example was used, it gets 17mpg mixed (I’m even helping you here instead of just using highway mpg), with four passengers that’s… oh my… 68mpg! It beats planes! Know what’s the passenger capacity of a Suburban is? Up to 8. Need me to do the math on that or I’ve proven my point? Heck, someone else already explained all of that to you so I don’t know why I need to repeat it.
Since I’m arguing against people going on vacations by plane so dang much it makes planes look even worse because people use them to travel thousands of miles instead of hundreds of miles if they were to go on vacation by car. 67mpg over 1000 miles = 14.9 gallons of fuel or the equivalent of traveling 250 miles per passenger in the Suburban or 770 miles per passenger in the Prius. How far do you go on vacation in a car? How far do you go on vacation in a plane?
Regional flights (i.e. in smaller less efficient planes) are 500 miles on average in the USA
https://www.statista.com/statistics/742763/regional-carriers-average-passenger-trip-length/
International (i.e. in bigger more efficient planes)… well it sure doesn’t look good!
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-international-aviation-km?tab=chart
In the USA it’s over 1000 miles (1980km), Europeans and Canadians are even worse… Do you really need me to prove that it’s more efficient for a French couple to drive from Paris to Rome (1400km) instead of going on the average French international flight (2700km) for their vacation? Our even more realistically, from Paris to Milan (850km) this way both travels take a day? I used the French example because their distance traveled is at the lower end of the West European average so I’m being nice here.
So, is my point clearer now?
It seems like you don’t understand how fuel economy works. Aviation is more fuel efficient no matter how you slice it and has been since the start of the millennium.
If your premise is that 52mpg/1 passenger = x mpg/3 passengers means that x is 104mpg/passenger then that means that 67mpg/1 passenger for a flight of 100 people is 6700mpg/passenger. You can’t divide for one and multiply for the other.
Also, planes get more fuel efficient the longer the trip because the majority of their fuel burn is on takeoff. Once they’re in the air, their fuel use is minimal and they lose the weight of the fuel as they continue which further makes it more efficient.
So no…your point is not clearer because air travel is more efficient than travel by auto in all cases except, again, the shortest distance travel where it’s not even practical to fly. You can try to limit your data to only trips with more than 3 people (the point where driving becomes more fuel efficient) and only for long distances but that means you’re only further scaling down the impact that making efficiencies has since that’s not really the most prevalent use for cars.
The 67mpg figure IS ALREADY PER PASSENGER! Do you truly believe a plane full of passengers only burns 15 gallons to travel 1000 miles? Why does a 777 need to carry 13 000 gallons of fuel then? By that logic that would be enough to travel 1 066 000 miles considering they get 82mpg/passenger when full of passengers (which you interpret as 82mpg/vehicle)!
https://alliknowaviation.com/2019/12/14/fuel-consumption-aircraft/
Napkin math time:
6000 to 7500 kilograms of fuel per hour for a 777, gas weights 0.72kg/L, that’s 8300L of fuel burned per hour and I’m using the most advantageous number to help you! Typical cruise speed is 900km/h. That’s 108m for every liter of fuel, 410m per gallon, 0.25 miles per gallon. Hey, look at that, pretty fucking close to the 0.21mpg with a single passenger that I calculated with the official number, isn’t it?
I KNOW! You are missing the point! The only way your point bears out is if every car has 3+ people for every trip.
The only way what you said is actually true is 2 cases: 1) The car making the trip has 3+ passengers or 2) The total distance traveled is less than 200km. If the average passenger count for all car rides is 1.3 passengers, then how many of those rides do you think are 3+ passengers? If it was any significant amount, then that average count would be much closer to 3 and not a rounding error away from being 1! And on the other end, the average plane flight for travel is transcontinental. That means that replacing flights less than 200km with car rides isn’t going to make a dent either because that’s already what’s happening most often. Unless cars suddenly become able to drive across the Atlantic Ocean, you’re not making any changes by doing what you’re proposing.
Holy fuck!
Me: People should stop using planes to travel long distances and instead go on vacation close by and by car because it would be more efficient.
You: Most plane travel is long distance so it can’t be replaced by car!
Even when proven wrong with math and with multiple people telling you what you’re saying is completely missing the point, is wrong and your math makes no sense, you keep arguing!
Holy fuck!
You: People should stop going to stores to buy their food and should instead grow their food in their own backyards because it’s more efficient.
Me: That’s completely unrealistic and won’t make a difference because most people live in cities and don’t have backyards.
You: I’m only talking about the situation of people who have backyards!!
Me: If all of those people did what you’re saying, it wouldn’t even make a dent.
You: Multiple people are telling you that growing your own food is more efficient but you keep arguing!
I’m arguing because your point and your suggestion don’t change anything in any meaningful way while also introducing changes that make them a non-starter. How many times do I have to repeat the statement that there are more meaningful ways that won’t impede on people’s lives more than banning most commercial flights.
You also argued that cars are more fuel efficient than planes. They’re not. They only are in very specific scenarios that don’t reflect the reality of how people use cars at all.
Also when we switch to e-fuel flying becomes far better ecologically than trains and as there are already flights happening using e fuel and facilities to make it at scale being built we’d be foolish not to consider that in our planning.
Yes, but we have a ways to go before that is the norm. Even without that, though, planes are more fuel efficient than any cars or light-duty vehicles and it’s not really close.