Travel – Page 21 – a sibilant intake of breath

More camera and travel issues

Earlier today, I got my Rebel XS back from Canon. Apparently, they had to replace one of the circuit boards to deal with the infinite loop the camera got itself into at the Fill the Hill event. Unfortunately, whoever did the repair managed to disable my on-camera flash in the process. I had little choice but to send it back to Canon immediately, since my one-year warranty will be up in a few days.

Henry’s says they will definitely lend me a body for the family reunion in Vermont, since I bought their three-year extended service plan. I just have to hope I get the camera back before December 19th, when I will be leaving for Vancouver. I really doubt Henry’s would lend me a body for a whole month, but it would be really intolerable to be sans-dSLR during my first trip to Vancouver in two years. I am told that ‘re-repairs’ are generally faster than ordinary repairs. That’s a bit comforting, though it is unnerving to know that cameras are broken often enough during the repair process for the Henry’s staff to be familiar with the statistics. What ever happened to quality control?

As for the mode of travel, I am leaning warily towards the bus. It’s a lot faster and cheaper than the train, and 1/5 of the emissions of flying. On the ‘sociology of travel‘ side, nothing shows commitment to climate change mitigation more than extending the length of your journey twelve-fold, in order to decrease the associated emissions by 80%. Well, I suppose the only thing that would would be avoiding the journey entirely, and passing the time blockading nearby coal power plants instead.

Re-pondering a low-carbon cross country voyage

I am delighted to say that I will be able to take the time from Saturday December 19th through Sunday January 10th off work. Naturally, the thing to do is go to Vancouver, as I was unable to do over the summer.

Options:

Train

Comfortable, can walk around
Reasonable chance of getting some reading and other sorts of work done
Probably access to an electrical outlet
Probably half to 1/3 the greenhouse gas emissions of flying
Takes four days
Leaves three times a week: Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday from Toronto and Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday from Vancouver
Expensive: $1,100 for a non-refundable ticket
Note, if the Sierra Youth Coalition still has a 40% discount, that is a more reasonable $660.

Bus

Pretty uncomfortable
Not much chance of getting anything done – little space for books and/or laptop
Probably no access to an electrical outlet
Even fewer greenhouse gas emissions
Takes three days
Seems to leave every day
Cheap: $224 for a ticket that can be changed for a small fee

The train would certainly be much more comfortable and romantic, but is it worth paying nearly five times as much (and two extra days) for?

As a follow-up question, why are our trains so slow and expensive?

Cruise ship size record reset

At the end of October, the MS Oasis of the Seas was launched in Finland. It is the world’s largest cruise ship, 360 metres long, with capacity for 6,296 passengers. In November of next year, a second ship of the same class is expected to be launched: the MS Allure of the Seas. The ship is powered by three 13.9 megawatt (MW) engines and three 18.5 MW engines, with propulsion from three 20 MW Azipods.

I cannot help but think that if the advocates of the peak oil hypothesis are correct, these vessels will end up being viewed as the height of fossil-driven folly. The ship is also a reminder of how international waters remain the part of the planet with the most lax environmental standards, whether the pollutant in question is sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, or anything else. Indeed, large oceangoing vessels generally need to carry two types of fuel: one that is legal for use in the domestic waters of states with air pollution laws, and another that can only be used on the open ocean.

Environmentalism and ‘breathing underwater’

The Walrus recently published an article entitled: “The Age of Breathing Underwater.” Written by Chris Turner, it relates to a number of previous discussions here, such as the recent one about being unimpressed with humanity, when it comes to behaving sensibly about climate change.

It begins with a lengthy discussion about some of the life in coral reefs: one of the ecosystems most profoundly and immediately threatened by climate change. Indeed, even with some pretty aggressive mitigation, most will probably perish during the lifetimes of those reading this, as the result of both rising temperatures and increasing ocean acidity. The article quotes scientist J. E. N. Veron saying that by 2050 “the only corals left alive will be those in refuges on deep outer slopes of reefs. The rest will be unrecognisable — a bacterial slime, devoid of life.”

The article also discusses environmental activism, science fiction, the prospect of geoengineering, the concept of ‘resilience’ in a threatened world, and what it means to be alive in the Anthropocene – the era in human history characterized by the impacts of human beings on physical and biological systems. It makes the strong point that we can somewhat reduce the eventual impact of climate change by working to diminish other stresses; reefs threatened by warm and acidic water don’t need dynamite fishing and oil drilling to help drive them to extinction. The same is surely true of terrestrial ecosystems. Resilience is also something that can be built into human systems – the ability to stretch and change without breaking. From my perspective, that is one huge limitation of the ‘survivalist’ approach to surviving climate change. Your little armed colony might be able to sustain itself under present conditions, but it isn’t necessarily very flexible, when it comes to adapting to whatever the future will bring.

The ‘underwater’ metaphor is an interesting one. The author points out that the human capacity to remain underwater for extended periods depends fundamentally on the whole enterprise of modern industry. The author points out that we’re not really trying to save reefs anymore: we’re trying to save the ability of human beings to do things like SCUBA dive. That ability can only be maintained if we maintain an industrial society, while transforming its energy basis. The article’s conclusion addresses this, but is somewhat underwhelming. While renewable forms of energy are surely a huge part of the solution, putting solar panels on top of buildings won’t be anywhere near adequate. We need comprehensive plans of the sort David MacKay has cooked up. Making the transition from surviving underwater using a set amount of compressed air (akin to fossil fuels) in a tank to living in a self-sustaining colony (akin to renewables) requires appreciation of scale and logistics. A few houseplants are not going to do it.

In any event, the whole article is worth reading and responding to. My thanks to my friend Ann, for pointing it out to me.

Two interesting Mars space travel tidbits

Firstly, a nice demolition of the idea that a one-way mission to Mars makes sense, written by Oliver Morton, whose excellent book I reviewed. The best concise point:

Most importantly, in terms of costs, there’s the ongoing commitment. A set of Mars missions you can cancel is a much more attractive than a set of Mars missions that you cannot cancel without killing people (“Launch the next rocket or the kid gets it”). To fund a single one way to Mars mission is more or less to sign up to funding them for as long as the colony lasts. That is a far larger spending commitment than required for a small number of return trips.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of the decision-makers responsible for keeping a Martian colony alive, while billions are watching via high-definition video links. Watching the astronauts slowly (or quickly) die would be awfully depressing, after all, especially if it was because of budget cuts.

Secondly, a Science article on the importance of not contaminating Mars with terrestrial organisms: Biologically Reversible Exploration. In essence, it argues that contamination from terrestrial spacecraft could forever eliminate our chances of studying life that evolved independently on Mars, if any such organisms exist. It argues that future missions, including any manned missions, adopt protocols so as to be ‘biologically reversible.’ As countless examples of terrestrial invasive species demonstrate, the concerns are not unwarranted, when it comes to microorganisms that might be able to survive or thrive in the Martian environment.

How Americans spend their time

The New York Times has cooked up a neat interactive graphic on how Americans spend their time. It is broken up by hour of the day and by characteristics like employment status, race, and level of education.

Everyone devotes a surpising amount of time to TV and movies, especially compared to socializing. It is also interesting to see that those with advanced degrees seem to spend the largest share of their time traveling, though the graphic doesn’t make clear whether this is intra-city commuting, vacation travel, or both.

I found the graphic via Sightline Daily. There are some interesting observations there, such as: ” Just so, only five percent of men over 15 say they spend any time walking on a given day. Yet for most of human existence, walking was the only form of transportation available to the large bulk of humanity.”

Manhattan airport

An idea so comically bad, one suspects it is an elaborate (and not especially amusing) bit of satire: turning Manhattan’s Central Park into an airport.

Firstly, the last thing the world needs is more airports. We need to be aggressively cutting our greenhouse gas emissions, not building infrastructure that will encourage more.

Secondly, the supporters of the project who describe Central Park as an “underutilized asset,” “relic,” and part of a “vestigial prewar cityscape” are probably not speaking for most New Yorkers. Land that has been set aside for green space is precious stuff. Quite probably, people in the megacities of the future will regret that nobody in the past gave up some development opportunities to give them the equivalent of New York’s Central Park, or Vancouver’s Stanley Park.

Thirdly, there is the matter of the noise that aircraft landing and taking off would produce. The design for the airport shows two runways going north-south along the eastern edge of the former park. That wold mean having planes approaching and leaving over areas of dense high-rise development.

Fourthly, there is the seriousness that a crash would have, if it took place in such a densely packed place.

Fifthly, there is the air pollution that results from jet exhaust. Increasing the level of criteria air contaminants like sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), lead (Pb), and ground-level ozone (O3) isn’t a great idea in such a densely populated area.

I doubt the scheme has the slightest chance of success, but it is still disquieting that there are people out there so hell-bent on development that they would consider and propose such a thing, then produce a slick website which includes the laughable assertion that environmentalists are ‘rallying in support” of the plan, because it will employ’ active prevention bird strike programs.’ Absurd.

Carbon-neutral aviation

The climatic impact of aviation

At present, virtually all freight and passenger-carrying aircraft operate in one of two ways: burning kerosene to turn a propeller, generating thrust that the wings partially convert to lift, or generating thrust by burning kerosene in a jet engine. Virtually all of that kerosene is produced by refining petroleum. As such, burning it adds to the stock of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. These include carbon dioxide (CO2) (a basic product of the combustion) and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs), like nitrous oxide (NO2). It is also possible that aircraft have an effect on cloud formation (both by producing vapour trails and inducing cirrus cloud formation), but my understanding of the science is that scientists aren’t sure whether that has a net warming or a net cooling effect. The latest IPCC report says:

Moreover, the uncertainties on some aviation forcings (notably contrail and cirrus) are still high, such that the overall radiative forcing consequences of changing cruise altitudes need to be considered as a time-integrated scenario, which has not yet been done. (p. 355)

Helpfully, the report does identify that, if contrails prove to be a significant problem, they “can be easily avoided – in principle – by relatively small changes in flight level, due to the shallowness of ice supersaturation layers.” There is also some uncertainty about the relative emissions of short-lived but potent GHGs like nitrous oxide, compared with long-lived but less potent ones like carbon dioxide. All told, the report does conclude that aviation has a “larger impact on radiative forcing than that from its CO2 forcing alone.”

Carbon neutral possibilities

A couple of logical possibilities exist for making air travel carbon-neutral, though they differ in practicality. Electric planes are conceptually possible, and small versions exist. As I understand it, the big problem is storing enough energy in light enough batteries. My sense is that we are nowhere near being able to do this for large commercial aircraft. Similar issues exist for hydrogen aircraft, in term of storage, and there is the added question of where we get the hydrogen. To me, biofuels seem like the most plausible near-term option. That being said, there are technical issues to be overcome within aircraft themselves, such as the gelling of biofuels at the low temperatures found at high altitudes. While some airlines have tested multi-engine planes with a single engine running on a biofuel/kerosene mix, as far as I know nobody has flown such a plane exclusively using biofuels.

Additionally, not all biofuels are carbon neutral. Ethanol derived from corn might actually represent more greenhouse gasses than an equivalent amount of gasoline, once you factor in fertilizer production, emissions from farming and farm equipment, ethanol fermentation, etc. The same might be true of palm oil derived biofuels, given how their production can lead to the destruction of rainforests that are major carbon sinks.

My sense is that the air travel industry has yet to demonstrate that it will be able to exist in a carbon neutral world, regardless of how expensive tickets become. That being said, it does make sense to displace emitting activities in order from lowest cost to highest cost. If we can replace fossil fuelled ground vehicles with electric vehicles running on renewable power, we should do so first before pouring enormous effort into trying to produce a carbon neutral aircraft. That being said, there does seem to be a strong moral imperative to reduce emissions generally, including by limiting the amount of long-distance travel we undertake.

As usual, I expect any mention of aviation to produce a lively discussion.

Algae for biofuels?

One possible feedstock for biofuel production is algae, which could be grown and processed in various ways, producing transportation fuels. Some people seem to think this is the most plausible path to affordable non-fossil transportation fuels. Others think various land-based plants and processes (cellulosic ethanol, jatropha, etc) are more viable. Another big question is how cheap biofuels could ever become. Biofuels at $100 per barrel probably wouldn’t mean the end of air travel, private cars fueled by liquid hydrocarbons, etc. Biofuels at $1,000 a barrel would push us a lot father away from their mainstream use.

I don’t know enough to decide one way or the other, though it certainly doesn’t seem like anyone is making cheap and functional biofuels from algae right now.

Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller

Jeff Rubin is a Toronto-based economist for CIBC World Markets, and he has written a book predicting a future of “triple digit” oil, and some of the consequences it will have. While the book is interesting and many aspects of the hypothesis are plausible, the lack of rigour in analysis makes the work less convincing than it might otherwise have been. For one thing, “triple digit” oil covers an awfully broad range. For another, it isn’t clear whether the effects he predicts will unfold in the order he anticipates. For instance, if severe climate change impacts emerge before acute and permanent increases in the price of fossil fuels, the global consequences may look rather different.

When he says that the world is going to get ‘smaller,’ Rubin is reversing the normal sense of globalization having shrunk the world. What he really means is that the world will get larger, relative to our ability to travel and move goods, and that we will have a correspondingly more local focus as a result. That means less imports of all kinds, less travel, and the re-localization of industry. Rubin’s strongest points and arguments relate to the production and use of fossil fuels: such as the effect of domestically subsidized fuels in oil producing states, the limitations associated with energy efficiency, the problems with corn ethanol, and the importance of energy return on investment, when contemplating alternative fuels and sources of energy.

Rubin’s habit of mixing established fact with speculation, and sometimes dismissing important possibilities with a brief splash of rhetoric, makes this book more valuable as a prod to thinking than as a guide to what is likely to happen. The book also contains the occasional overt error, such as referring to prosperous South Korea as the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ – rather than the tyrannical regime to the north. The chapter on climate change was certainly lacking in ways that make me doubt the overall quality of Rubin’s understanding and analysis. He doesn’t really seem to grasp the concept of a stabilization pathway, technological wedges, or the physical realities that must accompany the stabilization of greenhouse gasses at a safe level. His discussion of electrical generation – in both fossil fuel based and alternative forms – is similarly lacking in detailed and rigorous evaluation.

In the end, Rubin’s work is an interesting way to set yourself thinking about the effect that constrained energy ability would have upon the world and your life. When it comes to evaluating the macroeconomic and societal consequences of such a development, the book would probably best be read alongside a more transparent and quantitative analysis, such as that in David MacKay’s book on sustainable energy.