September 2008 Archives

I applaud the airports for taking steps to use less energy, generate fewer emissions, and recycle more, as reported in a USA Today story last week that I had perused while at ITEXPO West.

Yet if these facilities, and their airline masters truly want to go green they should:

* Invest in European-styled electric high-speed rail links to replace short-haul flights. 

A Hydro-Quebec report published in 2006 revealed that such air travel can release as much as 340 grams of CO2 per passenger-kilometre as compared with zero for a passenger in a high-speed electric train, powered from hydroelectric dams. In contrast, long-haul flights, for which there is no competition (other than the ultraclean choice of conferencing) release as little as 102 grams.

Short haul flights also eat up runway space, whose expansion chews up life-giving greenspace. More runway wear-and-tear also means more pollution-adding construction and maintenance.

*Shift access to mass transit and shared-ride away from private vehicles. Invest in rapid transit and subsidize off-site airport buses to transit centers, like existing commuter rail/bus stations near where users live. Pay for this by hiking parking fees to discourage single occupancy vehicle access.

Several ideas/observations overheard at ITEXPO West last week in Los Angeles...

1. Get rid of the ethanol subsidy 

Ethanol production--from grains as opposed to biowaste--is being criticized for generating more pollution than it solves through processing and transportation.

Kind of like LEED buildings being erected in car-oriented office parks, gouged out of what had been environmentally-beneficial fields, wetlands, forests...

2. Go nuclear, like France has done. Get away from coal, heavy oil, natural gas, hydro...

There is some logic here. The big question with nuclear is what to do with the spent fuel. Those costs must be factored into the price.

Then again, compared with bird-killing tailing ponds from tar sands production, blowing up mountaintops and gouging craters for coal, the refining process for oil and natural gas, damming up rivers for hydro...

3. Invest in electric high-speed rail, again like France

Makes sense. Electric rail transportation emits far fewer total emissions than driving and flying and requires much less greenspace. 

Air and road travel have long had free rides--including on the environment--thanks to enormous direct and indirect subsidies that had put private rail passenger transportation out of business. 

The transportation picture, and the environment and energy, not to mention urban development, would have looked much different, had there been a true free market competitive level playing field between modes.

To redress this balance there needs to be heavy government investment--like which was made on the Interstates and in airports that had nearly eliminated passenger and urban rail.

There is a high-speed rail vote going to the California electors this fall. There are also other transit funding measures on or will likely be on the ballot (a future entry in the Green Blog will look at them but this article in the July issue of the transit trade magazine Metro gives a good primer. 

3. Look at shale and other oil sources

There is nothing evil about oil per se from any source, but the final costs from them must include all the direct and indirect environmental expenses incurred.
Anything less is a subsidy...

At ITEXPO West there is also an opportunity to win a Toyota Prius hybrid: a worthwhile vehicle to own for no matter how good mass transit and alternatives like teleworking are, there will always be a big place and need for private cars. The key (literally) is to minimize their environmental footprint by hybrid and pure electric technologies and by unclogging the roads through transit and teleworking so that driving can truly be fast, convenient, and free.