On Sunday the Boeing company laid out the red carpet to launch to the public its ballyhooed Dreamliner aircraft, that promises to impact air travel greatly.

A techincal marvel, Dreamliner is the first large passenger jet to be made mainly out of fiber and not aluminum - thus gaining a 20% less weight - and a corresponding fuel efficiency - which they say promises to make air travel more affordable.

CAN'T WIN FOR LOSING
And there's the catch - billed thus as a green machine because of fuel efficiency green groups nevertheless pooh-poohed it, saying that by making air travel more affordable it will thus cause more air travel and thus add to greenhouse gases, not lower emissions as a total.

Thus, much like freeways often spur car use by making longer commutes easier the plane maywell become a culprit in the green world.

analysts point out that Boeing is putting most of its eggs in one basket with the Dreamliner - betting a large part of its future sales on it, and it appears to be successful in terms of future orders at least.

The foil to AirBust's Jumbo Jet, which is planned to connect folks to hubs where they board other planes to spoke destinations, Dreamliner is betting that folks would rather go right to their destination and not to hubs and hassle with changing.

I think Dreamliner carries about 450 people vs 700 or so on AirBust jumbo - making it economically more efficient to fly direct to several cities rather than the hub theory, better for huge planes.

>..by making air travel more affordable it will thus cause more air travel and thus add to greenhouse gases,..<

By making smaller, more fuel efficient cars more people will want to drive.

BTW, one greenie site says that flying from ATL to CDG emits 3417 lbs of CO2 PER Passenger, while another says it's 234.

Using the more reasonable figure, Large airplanes are as carbon efficient as cars that average 30 mpg city/road - about 0.05 lb/passenger mile.

How come no one talks about the destruction of the rain forests?

"Large airplanes are as carbon efficient as cars that average 30 mpg city/road - about 0.05 lb/passenger mile."

Even if it were true that planes are no more damaging than cars per passenger-mile, the problem is that planes cover much greater distances. You'll make a return flight across the Atlantic for a holiday, but would you drive 3000 miles each way for a holiday?

i'm no rocket scientist but don't planes pollute more for the same amount of emissions because they pollute the stratosphere?

H.and I were just discussing this yesterday. Personally I'm excited about the Dreamliner. It's not the definitive answer to air pollution, but it is a start. And, I have absolutely no desire to travel with some 700 other passengers on an Air Bus!

Now if it can just fly!

Hi GH,

>You'll make a return flight across the Atlantic for a holiday, but would you drive 3000 miles each way for a holiday? <

The driving distance from Madison to Sacramento (where my older daugther lives) is 2500 mi (close enough for govt work). The other daughter is in Tucson - 1800 mi.

Mileage by air is 2100 to S and 1500 to T.

So, flying is not only faster and cheaper, it's more CO2 efficient.

Also include in this road trip, staying at motels and eating at restaurants - both of which add to my CO2 footprint.

The fault, my dear GH, lies in our cars, not in our airplanes.


Of course, for trips under 500 miles, one should go by train.

The only way to decrease overall carbon emission is to either 1) change to a carbon-free fuel source like nuclear power, or 2) make carbon-based fuel energy source very expensive to consume.

Anything else will not work. Because if you make planes or cars more fuel efficient, that will simply lower the cost of travel, and more people will travel or people will travel more.

But let me focus on plane travel. Planes using nuclear or other alternative power source won't happen in the next few decades, so forget about that. Now, the only other way is to make fewer people fly. That raise two questions: 1)Is that what's good for humanity? And 2)How to make that happen/

To answer #1, just ask yourself. Do you like to travel? What happen if that becomes a socially unacceptable behavior like smoking in public? Do you like to live in a world like that? That's the hardest question.

Once you have answered #1, #2 is easy. You can tax airline fuel, you can tax passengers, but those may drive airlines out of business. Or you can guarantee profit for airlines - like re-regulating routes and fares. That'd eliminate competition and guarantee high fares. There will be much higher fares, fewer planes, fewer flights, fewer congestions. Every airline, every animal, every resident near airports will be happier.

I remember back when everybody said they would never set foot in a 747 because it was too big.

And somebody please give me the source of information for 700 passengers on an A380. I have not ever seen that figure. The first customer, Singapore Airlines, will be flying the A380 with fewer passengers than a 747.

Meanwhile, the A350 is on the way, also built out of carbon fiber. At least we hope so. Since the B787 has never even flown yet, let's see what it can do before we get too excited.

Several A380 models are planned: the basic aircraft is the 555 seat A380-800 (launch customer Emirates). The 590 ton MTOW 10,410km (5620nm) A380-800F freighter will be able to carry a 150 tonne payload and is due to enter service in 2008 (launch customer FedEx). Potential future models will include the shortened, 480 seat A380-700, and the stretched, 656 seat, A380-900.

The 380F has already been postponed after FedEx and then UPS pulled their orders. Airbus said they'll restart the 380F program later after they get the passenger model back on track.

No stretched models are being offered right now, and I don't see it for a long time.

They're going to concentrate efforts in bring the 350XWB to the market, and the replacement of the 320 family.

Seems as though AirBust is also going thru turmoil in terms of where to produce planes, trimming down costs, etc. and who controls the company.

Current President Louis Gallois, former chairman of French SNCF railways, has exerted French dominance but Germans are balking - perhaps privitizing the entire thing and having one interest would help cut costs, etc.

>perhaps privitizing the entire thing and having one interest would help cut costs

Ummm...
Airbus IS already a private enterprise, though with state exercizing a strong control function due to "strategic importance".
It is in this regard btw. not that much different from Boeing.

it just seems that Gallois was a political appointment by Chirac - same as when he became chairman of SNCF

In any case with all the red SNCF ran during his tenure it doesn't seem he was the man to lead the air company in tough times.

But at least like a another recent former SNCF President Gallois did not end up in jail for malfeasance of office!

Boeing is not all at run by a political appointee even though of course they get tons of government bucks.

My airline is expected to announce an order of up to 60 Airbuses in the coming weeks -- or it may split the order with Boeing. But it is going more likely for a bunch of A320's, the current world bestseller. If so, it will very much upset Boeing, because it has been an almost exclusive Boeing customer up until now and is currently flying no Airbuses at all, after retiring a half dozen A300's last year.

my son, who grew up in France, is studying aeronautical engineering in the U.S. now and is an avid aviation buff and says that pilots don't care much for the Airbus because it's too automatically controlled (which makes me more comfortable)

and he doesn't much care for Airbus for some reason.

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For those of you who tend to be skeptical about figures:

>one greenie site says that flying from ATL to CDG emits 3417 lbs of CO2 PER Passenger, ...about about 0.8 lb/passenger mile <

The molecular weight of CO2 is 44. So 3417 lb is 77.65 moles.

Since 1 mole of Kerosene (C10H22 approx) yields 10 mole of CO2, we need 7.7 mole of K.

This comes to 1093 lb of fuel per passenger, or 328,000 lb for 300.

OTOH, it has been documented that a 777 uses 22 gal fuel/min = 11,880 gal in 9 hrs or 77,220 lbs per flight.

This comes to about 0.18 lb CO2/passenger mile.

which still begs the question - does emitting such at high altitudes make it much worse than on the ground?

guess i'll have to ask my son who is studying aeronautical engineering this question.

and of course we have to figure in emissions caused by traveling often many miles to the airport and back

Since I didn't believe the airplane figures, I thought it only fair to recheck the auto figures.

Assuming that the gasoline is 100% octane (it isn't, but close enough for gov't work) a car getting 30 mpg with two people in it, using gasoline that weights 6 lb/gal yields 1358 lb of CO@ on a 4400 mile trip.

This is 0.31 lb/passenger mile.