If archeologists can be believed, and they certainly seem like studious, reasonable people, then we might accept their belief that modern humans migrated out of Africa and spread across the world 60,000 years ago. That’s a long time in human terms. It’s the blink of an eye when measured against geological timelines.
This is worthy of note because the world was in the grip of an ice age up until about 25,000 years ago. That means our ancestors, using technology not much more sophisticated than clothes made of animal skins, housing adapted from caves or huts made of deadfall, and tools derived from sharpened sticks, animal bones, and shaped rocks, survived and thrived in a time when much of the land you walk today was covered in ice. Even temperate locations like my beloved Florida were quite chilly.
The peninsula I live on today was much wider back then. Sea levels were much lower, which made the Sunshine State more than twice the size it is today. Had real estate developers taken the opportunity to exploit that larger land mass, just imagine the volume of insurance claims and government aid required as the tide came in, and in, and in, until the beach reached only as far as it does today.
Recently, you may have read some disparaging remarks in the news about how private jets are causing havoc. The emissions of these rich-boy toys will kill us all, it seems. Or so they say. But will it? Is that truly a likely outcome?
I think not.
As the level of technology a society has available to it increases, so does life expectancy, quality of life, ease and method of travel, and the ability to mend our errant ways. There is no doubt that when our primary energy consumption morphed from whale oil and coal to petroleum products and electricity, there were some very negative consequences. However, those negatives came with an almost unimaginable improvement to the human experience. Those improvements can’t be denied. Not by any rational person, at any rate.
While the idea of carbon emissions spewing from private jets may concern a great many people, those same people are more than happy to utilize the services and luxuries those private jets provide to us. The same can be said for military jets, civilian transports, and freighters.
The key to ameliorating those fears is to recognize that technology has improved every aspect of those aircraft over the past several decades. Turbine powered aircraft are quieter, more efficient, and less damaging to the environment than they were 50 years ago. That being the case, there is every reason to believe that progression toward cleaner, quieter, less negatively impactful flight will continue into the future.
Consider the Curtiss Jenny — a marvel of its time that brought aviation to the masses, if only as a spectator sport. The OX-5 engine that powered the machine weighed a whopping 390 pounds and only produced 90 horsepower. The airplane had a top speed of just 75 mph. It was so anemic it wasn’t possible to maintain altitude in a turn.
Twenty years later the same Curtiss Aircraft Company was producing the P-40 Warhawk. By installing a 1,200 horsepower Allison engine the cruise speed was increased by more than 200 miles per hour while range extended to nearly 600 miles.
This is progress. Not flawless. Not without room for improvement, but progress nonetheless.
In the 1940s the Douglas DC-3 was considered a marvel of modern engineering. It flew at a cruising speed that is a third slower than a Pilatus PC-12 and burned nearly 40% more fuel per hour. While the DC-3’s round engines gobbled up oil by the gallon and had to be rebuilt or replaced often, the PC-12’s turboprop engine lasts far longer and runs much cleaner.
Fifty years after the DC-3 came onto the scene, the PC-12 arrived. And the innovation doesn’t stop there.
The new Airbus A321neo being delivered to Frontier Airlines seats 240 passengers. The manufacturer claims it will get up to 120 miles per gallon of fuel per passenger. That’s a massive improvement over the Boeing 707, which clocked in at 20 to 30 miles per gallon per passenger.
Are you beginning to see a trend? I hope you do because trends indicate the way things are going. And in aviation, things are absolutely, without a doubt, getting cleaner, quieter, and more efficient.
Do we really want to put a stop to all that because we haven’t yet achieved perfection? Again, I think not.
Rotax engines are designed to run on unleaded fuel. An STC has been available for years that allows lower horsepower Continental and Lycoming engines to use unleaded fuels, too. And let’s not forget that oodles of very smart engineers are working diligently day after day to develop and deploy electric and hybrid powerplants that will render aircraft of all sizes even cleaner and more efficient yet.
We’ve come a long way from the days when our ancestors lit the cave by firelight, warded off predators with a sharp stick, and wrapped themselves in the skin of whatever they ate for dinner last night. Humans moved at the speed of foot for tens of thousands of years. They boosted that rate when steam engines were developed, albeit at the cost of burning coal to get that power.
We’re not nearly as deeply into the carbon-based fuels era as we once were. While we’re not yet as far along as we wish to be, we’re not giving up on the quest to achieve a better tomorrow, either.
So take the claims of climate change seriously, but don’t despair. We’re on it.
As an aside, I would be remiss in my duties as a rabble-rouser if I didn’t mention the computer used to write this column was powered by the sun. No fossil fuels were burned in its creation.
“The key to ameliorating those fears”. “Making better” is so much easier to read. Lol!! Good article!
The nature of the electric power distribution system in the US (and in fact, worldwide) is changing rapidly. While the wind may not be blowing HERE right now, it is blowing somewhere else, and the power generated by the wind turbines where the wind IS blowing is delivered here at 186,000 miles a second. Solar is the same, no power at night, so store some of what was made during the day, use it at night. The EU is seriously considering very large solar farms in Morocco to make power for use in the EU. Again, delivery of that power is 186,000 miles a second. I have read that there are presently 217 coal fired power plants in the USA, and exactly ONE of them produces power for less than the cost of solar, for the other 216, solar is cheaper (and cleaner). Remember also there are significant and ongoing environmental costs in mining coal, delivering coal by rail, burning coal, and disposing of the ash. Production of solar cells has a one-time environmental impact, and the power source is delivered daily, absolutely for free.
Ten years ago, electric cars were not very good, slow, short range vehicles. Today, EVERY major car maker is going electric, first, because electric cars are simply better than gas and diesel cars, they are faster, quieter, far simpler, take much less maintenance (and are projected to reach price parity in 2025 or so), and many places have outlawed sale of new combustion engine cars as soon as 2030 or 2035.
I would love to have an electric airplane, no vibration, no exhaust, no carb ice, no finicky fuel injection, no turbochargers, no carbon monoxide, no loss of power with altitude, no oil leaks, no exhaust cracks, and best of all, NO NOISE – which I will appreciate, and the NIMBYs who live near airports will have to find something else to complain about. We’re not there yet, but it is coming. Another advantage is that a “major overhaul” on an electric motor is “change two bearings” and you are good for another 20,000 hours or so.
The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, we found something better. The same thing is happening right now for the coal and oil age.
Electric power distribution system are not really changing. To have a good system you need reliable energy generation systems. Solar, wind, and tide/ocean systems are inherently unreliable. Yes you can add energy storage systems (batteries) but these add complexities, cost, and (surprisingly) unreliability. The most reliable are steam generation (nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, hydrothermal) and hydro-power (dams). The failure in Texas of the grid during the winter black out some years ago was due to the failure of wind generated power and not ramping up (unmoth balling) of gas plants before the weather hit.
While lithium batteries are nice and the best type of batteries, There is a limited amount of lithium that is available and it not without some pollution to produce. Other batteries pale in comparison to lithium’s energy density (need more of them) and so are not worth considering.
The problem with energy is its density. Wood has low density and is plentiful. Whale old has a little more density but is not very plentiful. Coal has more density and is plentiful. Oil is a little more dense is plentiful and easier to use the coal. Nuclear is very dense and is plentiful but needs special handling. Hydro-power usually is placed with coal and oil.
So while you will not have a nuclear powered aircraft anytime soon (WHAT I want one now), you might be able to have a nuclear thermal reactor generator (thorium fueled) for you house. It would be able to supply all your electric, heat and hot water needs. Full off grid living. Except for internet. And cell phone. And streaming AGGGH
FINALLY! An intelligent and optimistic treatise on climate change! How refreshing to read something citing natural earth climate change cycles rather than cow flatus and internal combustion engines as being responsible for the current warming cycle! You have become my new mentor,Jaime. keep up the good work!
I wanted to thank GAN for providing alternative, fact-based opinions like mine (pilot since age 15, 45+ years of experience as an engineer in aerospace and energy industries) on the topic of energy and the fake environmental crisis as they apply to aviation. If you do this at AVWeb, you get cancelled. Aviation used to be a place where facts reigned true. Sadly, wokeness has poisoned much of the aviation media, too. Hopefully GAN will remain an exception by providing two sides to stories. It did this for years on aviation fuel and why Mogas should be part of the mix. Thank you.
CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Humans and animals exhale it. All plant life would die without it. I live 2.5 west of the Outer Banks of North Carolinas in what is called the Sandhills region. These are the remnants of sand dunes when the Atlantic Ocean ended here. If the seas are rising, how come the ocean has receded in North Carolina? Note that many parts of the world are actually seeing land elevation sinking, which might be interpreted by some as rising ocean levels. It simply is not happening, and most of the dire predictions from the fanatics like Al Gore have been proven utterly wrong. Aircraft produce less pollutants because they use less fuel, they are more efficient these days than in years past, thanks to the hard work of engineers like me to make them less costly to use. They are more popular in aviation today because airplane owners want to spend less money on flying, not because they think they are saving the planet from nonexistent problems. If the greenees really wanted to reduce emissions from aircraft, they would be supportive of aviation diesel engines fueled by diesel or jet fuel. The diesel cycle is very efficient and the engines last a long time. Battery planes are a big lie environmentally, as they only store energy produced by coal, natural gas, nuclear, a bit of hydro and a very tiny amount of intermittent, expensive, unreliable power from windmills and solar panels made in Communist China. To really see what the future holds in store for us, read Alex Epstein’s outstanding book, “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas – Not Less”. As far as any supposed environmental crisis is concerned, read “There Is No Climate Emergency, Say 500 Experts in Letter to the United Nations,” By Mark J. Perry, Senior Fellow Emeritus, American Enterprise Institute, aei.org
Nah, there’s no problem with sea-level in the Outer Banks. You just ripped up a chunk of Highway 12 because you couldn’t keep it from flooding out. The new Rodanthe Bridge puts the highway 24 feet in the air but that was just to improve the view, right?
Wrong. The outer banks are so-called “wandering” islands of sand. They “move” constantly, especially in stormy weather, which is common on the Outer Banks. In the day, ferries and floating bridges were used to link them. Homes were built on stilts. Permanent bridges are nearly an oxymoron on the Outer Banks. If the oceans were truly rising, why would people build million-dollar homes from one end of the Outer Banks to the other? Why did the Obamas build two of their mansions on Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard? Are they somehow excluded from the dangers of seas that are rising, not?
Better tell NCDOT. They’ll be able to save a lot of money.