“Don’t ask why, ask why not” John F. Kennedy
On the news that the Government has extended $600 million extra in credit to keep Air New Zealand in the air.
(taking it to a maximum of $1.5 billion.The interest rate on the loan has also been lowered.)
Talk about a missed opportunity.
Can we really afford such short term BAU thinking?.
If we are ever to tackle climate change, converting airliners to greener fuels will be extremely problematic, (less so for surface vessels). So much so, that I doubt it will ever happen, or wind up being so horribly expensive and impractical that we will be burdening future generations of New Zealalanders with a stranded asset.
What if the government instead of making this eyewatering amount of funding available to a sunset industry like air travel, put that money toward a new way of connecting us to the world, one much less damaging to the climate
The Bullet Trains of the sea.
Tasmanian built LNG powered Incat vessels can cross the Tasman sea in 24 hours carrying 1,000 passengers, (possibly twice that or more if you packed them in with aircraft style seating arrangements). Plus 150 cars. Get rid of the car deck and you could probably double passenger capacity again.
Do that and the cost per unit could be very low.
Just as high speed trains in Europe and Japan sucessfully compete with the airlines over land, Incat vessels have been built to compete with the airlines across water.
How about it? Would you buy a ticket to cross the Tasman on a high speed ocean going ferry if the cost of a ticket was half or even a quarter the price of an airfare over the same distance, also knowing that you were saving the planet?
There is even a possibility of moving from low emissions LNG to zero emissions Hydrogen fuel.
Such a vessel is already being built right now. (admittedly for the luxury billionaire end of the market, but if rich people have any social use at all, it is by being early adopters and trend setters. Strip away all of the billionaire fripperies and a hydrogen powered drive chain could be fitted into an Incat passenger vessel. But that is for the future, LNG powered Incat passenger vessels are operating now and successfully competing with airlines.)
OK so it takes 24 hours instead of 3 hours to cross the Tasman, but realistically it takes up most if not all your day getting to the airport and preflight boarding and luggage check in. A lot of this could be done in transit on a much roomier ferry. And with roll on roll off you could drive right on board (As an incentive to ditch the ICE I would take EVs at no extra cost to your boarding ticket)
Now that’s what I call addressing climate change by building back better.
Affordable?
Hell yes!
Doable?
Comrade Patrick John O’Dea is a fierce fighter for worker rights.
Keep the vehicle deck it could work. This is sooner than expected but we would have gotten something like this eventually given sufficient population and GDP.
‘There is even a possibility of moving from low emissions LNG to zero emissions Hydrogen fuel.’
Despite all the irrefutable evidence that there will NEVER be a hydrogen economy because there are no sources of hydrogen on earth and that all the hydrogen ever used is made by partial oxidation of natural or using electricity generated using natural gas, both methods incurring substantial energy loss) the delusions and misinformation continue.
It’s like fighting a Hydra: each time a tentacle is cut off another appears in it’s place.
That why there is absolutely no hope for this society. Ignorance and stupidity reign supreme and cannot be eradicated.
Oh well, the delusions about maintaining some semblance of current economic arrangements will continue until the whole system fall over in during the next 5 years.
Hydrogen is not a fuel source for harvesting energy. It takes more energy to extract the hydrogen that what is available by burning that hydrogen,
Hydrogen fuel is just another of the myths flown to distract from the inevitable course of drastically reducing our energy consumption.
Not convenient, but as unavoidable as climate change forced by using fossil fuels for energy.
Atmospheric CO2 now over 420ppm. Will it rise. Most certainly with BAU.
We have developed an energy hungry path to a future of certain collapse of our fickle but temporary lifestyle
Simply because their aim is not to fix the problem, but to keep BAU going and to JUST look like they’re trying to fix the problem.
Same all around the western world.
All opportunities since 1997 crash have been wasted ON PURPOSE…….too much money being made by the uber elites via BAU, to change anything, UNTIL there is no option, by which time ‘they’ hope to have a (fairy tale) solution or be dead and so not have the problems today or tomorrow to deal with.
“Don’t ask why, ask why not”
Yeah, well there are dozens of reasons why we should NOT be indulging in aircraft-facilitated tourism, and almost as many reasons why we shouldn’t be indulging in ‘bullet trains of the sea’, not least being:
1. overheating the Earth via emissions from fossil fuels
2. the peaking of liquid fuels extraction and the imminent prospect of rapid terminal decline in availability
3. maintenance of the delusion people have the right to use energy at 100 times the permissible [if we are to maintain an habitable planet] rate
4. rapid transmission of pests and diseases
5. annihilation of any sea life that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially endangered species like turtles and dolphins
5. the Ponzi nature of the financial system and its imminent collapse……
Doubt if that, will cross the Tasman in winter while going fast and saving fuel.
Have to slow down for all the sea sick passengers, for one.
Faster than the weather
The typical storm front moves at most 40KpH. Normal large ocean going cargo ships and older style of passenger liners, though they can steam at 25 knots (45 Kph) cannot outrun or avoid storm fronts mainly because they are so long and too big to get around. These vessels simply have to plough on through.
Incat vessels have the speed to outrun most if not all storms. Guaranteeing smooth crossings most of the time. The large Incat vessel Francisco cruises at 58 knots (107Kph) No storm front has ever moved at anywhere near this speed.
Real time weather monitoring satellites tied to weather prediction algorithms using the vast expanse of the open ocean can chart a course for a speedy Incat vessel to avoid or outrun most if not all storm fronts.
Pat have you looked at the energy consumption of the cats and the emission in a whole of life carbon foot print. Both are fundamental considerations.
if the government stopped investing in air travel and instead ploughed that money into surface travel, Greta Thunberg could visit us.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/25/8881364/greta-thunberg-climate-change-flying-airline
Agreed Pat but why should Greta travel when the message can travel with a much smaller carbon footprint.
Perhaps it is connected with a factor also mentioned in the link you gave about the damage air travel causes. The factor is people feeling the support of being with others or a member of the crowd. An emotional response heavily relied on in much that we read that steers our beliefs. A thinking response is needed that is hard for some.
I never said that Greta Thunberg should travel to New Zealand, I said she could, (that is if she wanted to) But mainly I was thinking of the young people of her generation in this country and other countries that want to see the world and would rather do it in a more eco-friendly way.
The myth of traveling to see the world is so destructive.
While we have our screens an amazing amount of things can be seen without travel.
The whole world wide web is not eco-friendly either with the natural resources being consumed, the e waste produced and energy it takes to drive the web, has a limited future also.
We live on a finite planet.
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