Smoke and mirrors
smoke and mirrors
planes are serious polluters but we don't talk about them...why not?
Well the VW thing is more (maybe entirely) about smog pollutants (NOx, etc.) not greenhouse gas emissions. This is the stuff that creates smog and not global warming, the main impact is on the local population where the car is running or the people down wind. It is like guys pulling emissions gear and cats off of their bikes…
Greenhouse gasses are another thing but we tend to get confused, for cars this is mostly CO2. CO2 emissions can be estimated based on fuel consumption and the amount of carbon in the fuel per litre/gallon for both cars and planes… Bikes produce much more smog gasses than cars but they produce less CO2 assuming they get better mileage…here is a shot at it for planes:
Let's say that a litre of gas has 2.3 kg of CO2 when burned. Let's say a litre of jet fuel is close to Kerosene and it has 2.6 kg of CO2 per litre. Using as an example, an A320 that can carry 150 passengers and the fuel consumption is about 3.6 l/km. Or 360l/100 km. But there are 150 people on the plane so we can call that 2.4l/100km per person. If we use 85% loading the number changes to 2.8l/100km.
Now a modern small car is 9l/100km mixed driving and typically only have one person in it. An SUV or truck is 12 l/100km mixed driving. So based on this, you can fly 3.2 km (85% loading) for every km you drive a car. Or you can fly 4.3 km for every km you drive your SUV. Or we can say flying from YYZ to YVR (~3300 km) is like driving a car 1031 km or driving an SUV/Truck 767 km. Less people on the plane, more people in the cars, better or worse cars/turcks… But there is an estimation of the carbon footprint of flying.
Now the question with regards to the VW thing, how much NOx, etc. does the jet produce verses the car--this I do not know, and of course the impact on the location these gasses are produced (one at 30,000 feet in the air, the other beside you in traffic).
