Airline Passengers Will Be Forced To Pay for $5 Trillion Carbon Cleanup (bloomberg.com) 265
The aviation sector's plans to pass along the cost of decarbonization could add hundreds of dollars to the price of some fights. From a report: Fresh from surviving the Covid-19 pandemic, the aviation industry is about to hand passengers the multi-trillion dollar bill to fight its next existential threat: decarbonization. Cleaning up flying is a mission of improbable scale: Neutralize the carbon emissions of about 25,000 planes in the world's commercial fleet that typically ferry some 4 billion people a year and burn close to 100 billion gallons of jet kerosene. That's more dirty liquid to launder than all the beer drunk in the world in a year.
Some $5 trillion of capital investment may be needed to deliver on aviation's goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, almost all of it plowed into sustainable fuel production and renewable power generation, according to McKinsey. It's a mountain of money so large it could wipe out global airline revenue for the best part of a decade. With the clock ticking, industry leaders are starting to voice an uncomfortable truth. It's clear, they say, that the costs of weaning air travel off fossil fuels will land on passengers.
Through seven decades of nearly unfettered expansion, the aviation industry had to pay little attention to emissions. Passengers grew accustomed to ever-improving connectivity, increasing competition and cheap tickets. Suddenly, carriers find themselves in an environmental squeeze, with governments setting deadlines and activists gluing themselves to runways to call attention to global warming. While Greta Thunberg introduced flight-shaming to the public before the pandemic, record temperatures this summer have only underscored climate campaigners' point. Aviation's expensive transition to cleaner fuels has the power to put the democratization of flying into reverse, leading to higher fares, and fewer routes and airlines.
Some $5 trillion of capital investment may be needed to deliver on aviation's goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, almost all of it plowed into sustainable fuel production and renewable power generation, according to McKinsey. It's a mountain of money so large it could wipe out global airline revenue for the best part of a decade. With the clock ticking, industry leaders are starting to voice an uncomfortable truth. It's clear, they say, that the costs of weaning air travel off fossil fuels will land on passengers.
Through seven decades of nearly unfettered expansion, the aviation industry had to pay little attention to emissions. Passengers grew accustomed to ever-improving connectivity, increasing competition and cheap tickets. Suddenly, carriers find themselves in an environmental squeeze, with governments setting deadlines and activists gluing themselves to runways to call attention to global warming. While Greta Thunberg introduced flight-shaming to the public before the pandemic, record temperatures this summer have only underscored climate campaigners' point. Aviation's expensive transition to cleaner fuels has the power to put the democratization of flying into reverse, leading to higher fares, and fewer routes and airlines.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
People fly because it's cheap, and they will fly from anywhere to anywhere else on a whim. Which is (would have been?) nice, because the indirect costs were thrown away as a "future them" problem.
Now, the bill is due, and it sucks, but it's the cost of everyone being nearsighted for decades.
Time to visit something closer while on vacay. It won't kill them.
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People fly because it's CONVENIENT. And what of the alternative? People aren't going to suddenly just stop travelling. Let us calculate the environmental impact of billions of travel miles being done by car instead of by airplane. Whoa! I guess moving hundreds of people at a time is just slightly more efficient than moving them 1 or 2 at a time.
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And when you have a limited amount of vacation time (*cough*USA*cough*), you don't want to spend four of those seven days driving just to get there.
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s/get there/get there and back/
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People fly because it's convenient, of course.
Why is it convenient? Because it's fucking cheap, that's why. Convenience is a compound result.
Would flying willy-nilly be just as convenient after a 5 times price increase?
A: Yes. Good, now they will fly at "true" prices.
B: No. Your point is moot, then.
It's not as if this wasn't happening in the past.
People used to drive long distances less, and in a smaller percentage. There's trains, there's buses, there's carpooling.
And yes, a lot of people are suddenly goin
Usually air travel is worse (Score:2)
Years ago I owned a Chevy Suburban. Even though it had the aerodynamics of a brick, it would actually get a little over 19MPG on the highway. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to find out whether it was better to drive or to fly for a big trip I had planned. Found out the fuel burn for various aircraft and their max passenger configurations and baggage limits. From their I could calculate the passenger-miles per gallon. Even without considering luggage, it was always better for the environment to
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I don't know anyone who flies because it's cheap. The people I know fly for work, visit family, vacation, etc... While a small minority go up for the pleasure the majority fly for other reasons.
The bill is due on pollution which affects almost all industries in one form or another and we are all going to pay to move away from carbon emissions. $5 trillion is nothing compared to what is needed to move the grid away from carbon emissions. Yes we are going to pay as we've done before.
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I don't know anyone who flies because it's cheap. The people I know fly for work, visit family, vacation, etc...
Vacation and visiting relatives by flying is happening exactly because it's cheap. Otherwise, they would take the train or whatever. Inconvenient? Sure is. But welp.
As for flying for work purposes, most of work-related travel is not essential nowadays. The small percentage which is, well, the employer wouldn't mind paying 5 times as much, then, would they?
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Obviously you do not live in a country as large as the US.
If your trip takes you even half way across the country (back and forth)...plane is about the only practical way if you want to have any meaningful time at your destination. No one wants to spend a lot their time on travel itself.
And exactly, how is raising this price going to "pay" for carbon use, eh?
How is this ex
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if this sticks - a big if - if the government does not excuse the air lines from carbon taxes or subsidize them so they can operate at a loss - I mean how many times have they been bailed out in one form our another, I lost count;
It will have larger impacts on society that people realize. one of the characteristics of the later 20th and 21st centuries has been physical mobility. People take jobs on the otherside of the country because they grew up in a world of affordable, rapid travel. Take that away and
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This is all good if you never want to go from the US to Europe, or really ever want to go from one side of the US to the other. I feel like adding days of driving to a trip isn't very appealing, and depending on how it's done, is adding more hotels along the way, adding more restaurants etc better?
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Distance is also a major factor in that decision. Taking a train to visit family would take 93 hours one way, according to Amtrak, and cost 800+ per person, passing through Chicago and DC. (Of course, part of the reason for the sad state of passenger rail is low usage, and an increase in airfare might help with that, but I have serious doubts that it will improve much.)
As for driving... a 757 gets about 78 miles per gallon per seat for a 5 hour cross-country flight, or 39mpg for two people. That's better th
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People fly because it's cheap, and they will fly from anywhere to anywhere else on a whim. Which is (would have been?) nice, because the indirect costs were thrown away as a "future them" problem. Now, the bill is due, and it sucks, but it's the cost of everyone being nearsighted for decades. Time to visit something closer while on vacay. It won't kill them.
It's all fine and good to have that opinion, but then you need to stop using "parochial" as an insult. Because in light of this, all you're really saying is they're poor.
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People fly because it's cheap, and they will fly from anywhere to anywhere else on a whim. Which is (would have been?) nice, because the indirect costs were thrown away as a "future them" problem.
Now, the bill is due, and it sucks, but it's the cost of everyone being nearsighted for decades.
Time to visit something closer while on vacay. It won't kill them.
That's the plan, I'm going to drive to my vacation spot. Happy now?
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Time to visit something closer while on vacay.
brb., going to buy a rundown Catskills resort.
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People fly because it's cheap, and they will fly from anywhere to anywhere else on a whim. Which is (would have been?) nice, because the indirect costs were thrown away as a "future them" problem.
Yep. Now we need to do the same for everything else. Cars can't just emit CO2 willy-nilly and leave it as a future problem, or buses, or trains, or ships, or factories, or...
We need carbon taxes and carbon tariffs to push everything to decarbonize.
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How about building out alternatives to planes?
Canada and the US are so far behind the rest of the world with regards to trains. Why on earth would anyone fly from New York City to Chicago instead of taking a high speed train? From Montreal to Toronto by high speed train? From Edmonton to Calgary? Why aren't all the west coast cities from Vancouver BC to San Diego not connected by frequent reliable train service? Why aren't gulf towns and cities from Corpus Christi to Miami connected by train?
Yes, sure, flyi
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This entire post is very odd, because you seem completely content with all other modes of transportation causing all the problems you just described, but for some reason are so vehemently against trains that suddenly all those problems are far too big for the ROI?
It seems like you have some kind of irrational hatred towards trains or something. I dunno, it's very strange.
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This is how you end up with people not travelling / experiencing different cultures and other parts of the world - which can increase provincialism - which I'd argue hurts convincing people to care or believe in "subtle" global challenges like climate change.
If you never leave a "small" area in your life, you're less likely to viscerally understand how different parts of the world are from each other. I can't prove this, but I believe this can increase the psychology of "not happening here - not a problem f
We must give up having nice things like air travel (Score:2)
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In the US, I've not heard of the feds making airlines do this.
The carbon tax thing, from what I have observed over the years, seems to just be a scam, it is moving money around and not really doing anything.
Is this something that is just happening in Europe?
I don't see this "flying" in the US...pun intended.
We need to fucking fly over here...and I don't see the average US citizen seeing a new high fee hung onto their ticket purchase that t
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Like others, I'm curious to see how this plays out. For domestic travel, it's fairly easy to see a nation-state deciding that, as (yet another) tax (and then doing whatever it wants with it, but that's a topic for another time). But what about international travel? Who decides the amount? Who gets the tax, and does it come with strings attached as to how to spend it?
Again, this might not be a bad idea, as air travel needs to reflect its true cost, including environmental. But the devil is in the detail.
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The aviation industry won't care too much so long as the rules are applied to the competition as well as themselves.
As for the political will to make this costly transition, obviously it remains to be seen how people in democratic nations will vote in the future and what China will do.
A mass grounding of planes like 911 isn
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Al Gore is just one example of many. Here in the UK good old Richi, sorry, I mean Rishi Sunak loves to spout the green mantra then flies a 200 miles for a meeting in an official government jet. And when questioned on this he gave the "my time is scarce" argument. And what , our time isn't??
Actions speak louder than words and until politicians realise that blatant hypocricy destroys any argument they may have little will change.
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I couldn't care less about Mr. Sunak, but his value (and time value) far exceeds yours, whether you like it or not.
Mr. Sunak could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and while it would suck for his friends and family, Britain, and the rest of the world, would carry on without so much as a blip.
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Maybe, but would it be a larger blip than some poor shmuck? I guess it would.
Re: Good. (Score:3)
The amount of chaos over the last few years whenever Britain replaces the Prime Minister (even clearly incompetent ones), clearly says otherwise.
You can disagree with a government leader policies, competence, efficiency, character, etc. But the fact their time is a scarce resource than 99% of their constituency, because of their position, is an obvious and verifiable fact. The impact of their actions, and opportunity cost of their inaction, impact far more people.
The same applies to Gore, or your typical (a
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For most political meetings, and certainly most corporate meetings, I don't see why it wouldn't be do a video call. The government surely could set this up? Heck, I video call rather than drive 22 miles now most days.
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They can use Zoom. Fuck them!
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except part of his job is literally to set an example for the public. When leaders travel via the highest carbon option to do things they might well have done over WebEx - that isn't valuable its counter productive.
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That's just hatin' on the rich.
Not everyone is equal, and not everyone deserves the same things as everyone else.
Flying cheaply everywhere was, and still is, a hidden-cost feature. The veil is taken off now, and we don't like what we see, but we have to suck it up.
Just like some people could afford a million-dollar house, or a million-dollar car, while most couldn't, flying should have been the same way, and as a matter of fact it was the same way (not necessarily for the same reasons, though).
https://simpl [simpleflying.com]
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> That's just hatin' on the rich.
> Not everyone is equal, and not everyone deserves the same things as everyone else.
You seem trapped in some kind of strange Anarchocapitalist cult. Being rich has no bearing on who deserves what. You really need to understand that wealth and quality are two wholly separate concepts.
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Re: Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet decennia later, you're still talking Al Gore. He must have made quite an impression on you.
Do you realize that while us mere soil dwellers pay tax for fuel, aviation has, historically, always slipped the bill? So now flyers will have to pay just like the rest of us. Wanna fly 5000 miles for a two-weeks all-in? Cool. Pay for it.
Don't feel like paying the actual cost of flying instead of some lobbied-our-way-out-of-it early 20th century taxfree utopia? Take the train, the bus, the car. See how far you really get for your buck.
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Unlike Al Gore who flies everywhere on a whim...
oookay. Question: Do you revere any politicians? Like.. if I make a pointed remark about Ted Cruz are you going to pound your fist on the desk?
Just curious cos no-one gives a shit about Al Gore and short of projection I can't figure out why you thought that was a rebuttal to anything.
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This is childish bullshittery considering all the nice things you can do besides flying
Please explain to me which of those other nice things will get me to Eastern Europe and back, to visit family, during the 1 week I get in a typical year in which I'm not on call and required to be near the office?
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Not an option. They could not get citizenship here and I would not be able to support my family there.
The world doesn't have to pay for my choices. So I don't quite understand why my family now has to pay for theirs.
Re:Is it really good? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, dude, I would not afford flying on increased prices, as in, at all.
I live in Eastern Europe, close to being (if not THE) arsehole of Europe. We're poor by your standards. Average salary for the whole country is around $900, and minimum wage is... $421. Per month. I worked my arse off and still do, to be well-off by local standards (still fairly poor by yours, mind you).
At the same time, I seem to have more brain than you, being able to judge a situation objectively and whatnot. Not everyone is a special snowflake, and not everyone can afford everything everyone else does.
Re: Is it really good? (Score:2)
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People fly because it's cheap, and they will fly from anywhere to anywhere else on a whim.
Summary: You hate poor people and believe they should be disproportionally impacted by attempts to fix extremely existential climate issues.
Not sure I can get on board your "fuck the poor" train you are firing up there.
P.S. Some would even go so far as to claim you are racist, since black people would be affected disproportionally as well. Not me of course! Just "some".
Truly poor people aren't flying anywhere it's more an issue for the middle class. Poor people are going to be disproportionately affected by climate change, e.g., poor people in countries where their crops won't grow or where their land is under water. In richer countries the poor will be more adversely affected too, so use tax systems and so on to assist them more than just complaining about the cost of flights that poor people in the USA don't make a huge use of anyway.
Done Flying (Score:3, Interesting)
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And this is why we Zoom. Flying sucks.
Since when did Zoom add a Star Trek transporter feature? Must be in some super-advanced software package that I cannot afford/access/download. /sarcasm
Keep dreaming (Score:2, Insightful)
No significant political change where people voluntarily reduced their standard of living happened peacefully. None, zero. A lot of foolish people who failed to read their history are about to be introduced to this.
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That still wasn't voluntary, it just wasn't strongly opposed.
Re:Keep dreaming (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why?
I've not heard a convincing argument yet as to why I should give it up?
So far I see no signs of us running out of having enough fossil fuels to fully support both activities....at least for the next few lifetimes, after which I'll be long gone and dead...and not care.
A livable environment is a plus (Score:5, Insightful)
how the fuck (Score:2)
it's not the shareholders that would be made to pay ? they've been ripping trillions for ages...
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All the beer drunk in a year (Score:4, Funny)
Finally a journalist has found a unit I can understand!
Coincidence? I think NOT (Score:3, Insightful)
While Greta Thunberg introduced flight-shaming to the public before the pandemic, record temperatures this summer have only underscored climate campaigners' point
The hottest day of this year was July 6th. While it may not be directly connected – in the sense that today's emissions will manifest their effects in the future – an amusing coincidence lies in the fact that it also marked the record day for commercial airplanes in flight.
The people flying today are the one with enough money to do so. You will need more money to fly in the future, that's all. Maybe that means *you* personally won't be able to fly as often as before, but you will just be joining the situation of 90% of the world population today.
There are only two options anyway:
- either you consider that everyone has the same right to flight, in which case you limit flights by quantity (like 5 times in a lifetime; for everyone, including somalis)
- or you consider some people have more rights than others to flight, in which case you limit flights by price
Dumb people tend to prefer the latter, because they think "freedom". Until they realize it's freedom for 5% of the world population, and fuck the rest. Or until prices increase enough so that they are no longer in the top 5% able to fly whenever they want, but hey, they should have realized that sooner.
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While Greta Thunberg introduced flight-shaming to the public before the pandemic, record temperatures this summer have only underscored climate campaigners' point
Is this when she travelled by boat? I wonder if people remember that for that stunt they flew different boat crews in and out of different ports to run this boat back and forth. It's just another scam.
So...it won't stop the emmissions? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm understanding this correctly; all that money won't go towards reducing/eliminating emissions to any appreciable extent, but rather to "offset" their emissions. So...carbon credits.
Weird, almost sounds like a scam. I'm sure someone smarter than I will be along shortly to explain how it's not though.
Re:So...it won't stop the emmissions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, if that money doesn't result in carbon sequestration equivalent to the amount of carbon released into the environment by whatever activity resulted in the carbon tax... it's pointless.
But closing the carbon loop isn't a bad idea - I don't really care if an airplane is dumping tons of carbon into the air if it's running on synthetic fuel made from captured carbon. Do THAT with the money, and it's all good.
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They don't want synthetic fuel, they want cheap biofuel. They either believe in fairy tails, or at least pretend to believe in it, while ignoring that arable land biofuel can't scale and other sources of biofuel are more expensive.
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Realistically, if that money doesn't result in carbon sequestration equivalent to the amount of carbon released into the environment by whatever activity resulted in the carbon tax... it's pointless.
It's not just pointless, carbon offsets are a scam.
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How is it a scam?
We are allowing a fixed amount of polluting, and that requires a way to ensure the sum of all companies doesn't exceed that fixed limit.
Credits are a very functional way to ensure we remain at that limit while allowing for changing who gets what percentage of the limit.
In theory.
Realistically, you pay $1 for offsets on your flight, and they give it to some company that says that they are now not going to cut down a forest. Everyone feels good, but nothing actually happened.
There are a bunch of sources explaining this but for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: So...it won't stop the emmissions? (Score:2)
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Realistically, if that money doesn't result in carbon sequestration equivalent to the amount of carbon released into the environment by whatever activity resulted in the carbon tax... it's pointless.
Not at all. Even if carbon offsets don't sequester any carbon, airlines will be motivated to move to lower-emission aircraft and operations in order to reduce the money they waste on carbon offsets. Merely making carbon emission more expensive will motivate them to reduce carbon emissions. If the offsets directly accomplish carbon reduction beyond altering the incentives, that's a bonus.
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A lot of money is going into hydrogen, which can work at net zero. All the money spent on sustainable airline fuel is indeed wasted money, because biofuel can't scale.
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If I'm understanding this correctly; all that money won't go towards reducing/eliminating emissions to any appreciable extent, but rather to "offset" their emissions. So...carbon credits.
You understand incorrectly. In fact it looks like you didn't even read TFS. The investment being discussed is for deploying SAF plants and green energy production to power said SAF plants.
Weird, almost sounds like a scam. I'm sure someone smarter than I will be along shortly to explain how it's not though.
By not reading TFS let alone TFA you've set the bar very low indeed.
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TFS Is Wrong On 1 Point (Score:3)
That's more dirty liquid to launder than all the beer drunk in the world in a year.
You do not launder beer. You can only rent it for a short duration, then you have to give it up. /sarcasm?
Train (Score:2)
I like flying for a holiday but I can skip it. Lets ban fossil fuel planes and use trains.
need high speed rail with passenger rail priority! (Score:2)
need high speed rail with passenger rail priority!
There's an easy first step... (Score:5, Informative)
Start taxing jet-a1.
There's zero reason why airlines should get their fuel tax free whereas any other transport operator has to pay tax on fuel.
Yes I realise the Chicago Convention is a worldwide agreement but it was drawn up in 1944 FFS, its way past its use by date.
Re:There's an easy first step... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, tax crude oil. If we're going to get serious about carbon, then we need to tax it at the source, and then it's fair for all users. Existing fuel taxes are for things like road maintenance, so those would be left alone (or transition to different taxes; different discussion).
Now this doesn't work because the oil market is global and taxes are national.
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No, tax crude oil. If we're going to get serious about carbon, then we need to tax it at the source, and then it's fair for all users.
If your goal is to target carbon emissions, why would you tax the production of a material that's used in pharmaceuticals, textiles, plastics, paint, fertilizer, pesticides, and a huge number of other fields that have uses for it beyond simply burning it as a fossil fuel?
It's fine to tax the source when there's a 1:1 correlation between the source and an undesirable use case, but when the source material has a wide variety of uses, going after the source will have a wide variety of unintended side effects.
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Because the oil and gas wells are major emitters of methane, which has a higher GWP than CO2.
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No, tax crude oil. If we're going to get serious about carbon, then we need to tax it at the source, and then it's fair for all users.
What are you trying to achieve? If your goal is to reduce emissions than taxing a pre-refined product is *not* the way to achieve that. You want to be fair, tax the refined fuel based on its effective emissions of use.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/m... [wsj.com]
This is why you have to start at the wells.
A dollar spent is a dollar earned (Score:3)
Anyway seems to be the usual FUD from fossil fuel companies.
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Not really. The dollar is the same for the fossil fuel industry, there's no new money on the table, only new costs. \ The reality is SAF production is far more expensive than refining the by-product of motor vehicle fuel production. The $5tn investment in SAF plants is not something that will carry remotely the same margins as shoving kero through a merox unit and pumping it to an airport.
Most fossil fuel companies are only investing in SAF thanks to government subsidies to do so.
Typos: Fights / Flights (Score:2)
Some days it seems every single Slashdot has a stupid typo in the first line.
Don't you have some AI / LLM machine to help with editing?
This adds costs to FLIGHTS, not FIGHTS.
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The AI IS writing the headlines. D'oh!
Raise Fees For Private Jets (Score:2)
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The politicians and celebrities that fly all over the country (and world) in their private jets are causing way more of the problem.
Don't forget that the environmentalists also fly private jets. Oops.
What about everyone else? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Productivity is still growing, so ideally you can divert 30 years of productivity growth to achieve net zero instead of increasing consumption. Without actually reducing consumption from current standards (perhaps flying excepted).
We need the rich to pay the heaviest here (Score:3, Insightful)
I would suggest starting with a federal fuel tax that bare minimum triples the cost of fuel per gallon for the wealthy who fly privately. Make nothing about the jets tax deductible, even for corporations. Not even the employer taxes for the pilots.
It's time the public say absolutely no change that incurs costs will be permissible until the 1% are leading from the front, bearing even tougher versions of every single cost imposed on the bottom 99%.
Really? (Score:3)
While Greta Thunberg introduced flight-shaming to the public before the pandemic
Really? Because I seem to recall the sailboat thing as a greenwashing stunt that consumed far more resources / produced more pollution/CO2 than if she had simply flown commercial.
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Good! (Score:2)
Good!
Heaven forfend... (Score:2)
that we should tell the airlines to cover their own operating costs and - instead of bailing them out - invest in passenger train systems.
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Ever compared a train ride vs. puddle jumper in Europe?
"Take the crappier, slower, much more expensive train because benighted folk order you to."
Re: Heaven forfend... (Score:3)
or maybe because it doesn't dump tons of avgas into the atmosphere
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Ever compared a train ride vs. puddle jumper in Europe?
Yep, and I voluntarily take the train because despite being more expensive it is neither crappier nor slower for a very significant number of trips.
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I agree that airlines (or any other for-profit business such as banks) shouldn't ever be bailed out with tax payer money, but I dont think that's want's being discussed here. It's about airlines passing an extra cost of doing business onto passengers, which in my mind is perfectly fair. I mean where else are they going to get the money from?
Let's hope that a high cost of flying conventional jet liners in a free market economy opens up a market opportunity for alternative more green travel options, such as e
insanity (Score:2)
This will just as usual be a giant waste of money, simply making everyone's life worse, except those hawking the schemes that the money pays for. The effect on climate will be, of course, zero. But it may help to make airline seats have even less legroom.
Gimmick (Score:2)
I came into this thread expecting complaints about evil airlines passing on costs to the poor passengers, as if either way it was just an accounting gimmick and the people would pay the costs through tickets anyway.
Oh, there are declarations of evil here, but it's the common man, for having the temerity to take cheap flights, a product of capitalism, greedy, greedy capitalism wheedling costs out of bleeding edge tech so commoners can afford it.
Some of these kibitzers even long wistfully for the days where c
greenwash (Score:2)
Uhh, yah.. costs are always passed to consumers (Score:2)
In a market economy the consumers pay the costs.
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In a market economy the consumers pay the costs.
Yea I'm sitting here asking myself if this article's author just now figured out how companies work.
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