About time aviation fuel went up, though -
Can you explain your reasons for saying that jbj when all that will happen is that the airlines will pass the cost on to the customer ie you and me?
|
About time aviation fuel went up, though - Can you explain your reasons for saying that jbj when all that will happen is that the airlines will pass the cost on to the customer ie you and me?
Probably because he flies a hell of a lot less than he drives, and theoretically (VERY theoretically) putting some of the tax burden on flying would allow them to reduce it on other things.
In a similar way, I'm happy for them to tax tabacco as much as they like ;)
|
|
|
"Can you explain your reasons..?"
Only that it seems rather inequitable that the most polluting form of transport (high-altitude flying) uses the cheapest fuel.
The remark was partly prompted by the forecast aired on R4 that if air traffic carried on increasing at its present rate, the emissions could only be balanced by the reduction to zero of all other inputs! I daresay that's open to argument, but it crystallised the problem quite nicely, I thought.
|
|
|
|
I hope this doesn't mean you are suggesting they tax heating oil? :-)
Definitely not! We have neither gas nor mains drainage, and are probably never likely to have.
--
L\'escargot.
|
The only way to tax aviation fuel would be for every country in the world to agree to the same level of tax. Otherwise you would have ridiculous situations of long haul flights landing at places like Dubai to refuel tax-free and, as we all know, it's repeated take-offs that burn the most fuel.
HJ
|
|
Interesting point and I can see that a global taxation scheme would be fiendishly difficult, perhaps the answer then is to tax take-offs for the reason you suggest.
|
|
|
I?m happy with aviation fuel as it is thanks, I?m flying to Manchester in October for 5 Polish zloty (80p) with Wizz Air.
With offers like this I get to see my parents far cheaper, far easier and far quicker than when I lived in London and had to drive the M6
|
They have increased the tax on take offs, from most European airports. French socialist idea to fund relief efforts in Africa.
HJ
|
HJ is of course correct - aviation fuel is bought in the global market place.
It stands to reason that airlines will buy wherever the fuel is cheapest.
If they are forced to buy in the home market at a higher price or taxed globally then that tax will inevitably be passed on in the form of a surcharge to the traveller.
|
|
|
|
Exactly, the French came close to screwing up the whole cheap flight thingy this year - some big court case the details of which escape me now. For expats, they?re essential, I took more than a hundred flights last year alone while my wife was still in the UK. Couldn?t have done that with B.A. prices.
|
HJ is quite correct. Aviation fuel can only be taxed by international agreement and many countries would oppose such a tax because air travel is vital to their economic development.
Sitting here in Western Europe we're really quite spoilt. Our countries are linked with good surface transport so it is possible to travel around by car and train (although journey times will take longer).
But the citizens elsewhere in the world may not have that option so why should a vital necessity be taxed ?
Imagine trying to travel within Africa by road or train ? Or imagine how long it would take using surface transport to go from Hong Kong to Bangkok, Singapore or Tokyo ? Such trips, which now take 2 to 3 hours by air, might take a week or more overland.
|
"why should a vital necessity be taxed?"
Not sure it's that necessary. How many people *have* to travel, in an age of email and videoconferencing? Some goods may need to, but I wouldn't include cash crops from Africa, for instance.
We seem to get by with tax on petrol and diesel, after all...
|
|
|
|
|
Well done Dave. You've contributed 25 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere.
|
$$ - You've got me going now!
So what if he has ? Quite frankly I don't know how the so called experts measure these things and I do not care.
They always seem to contradict themselves.One minute its global warming and the next its a new ice age....
I repeat my argument in a previous thread regarding the massive contribution to the hole in the ozone layer caused by cows breaking wind.
Perhaps we should have a cow emission tax rather than an airline fuel tax.
|
"Perhaps we should have a cow emission tax rather than an airline fuel tax."
We already do.
Its called CAP (common agricultural policy)
Only thing is it's you and I that get taxed to pay for all the cows...
|
|
|
$$ - You've got me going now! So what if he has ? Quite frankly I don't know how the so called experts measure these things and I do not care. They always seem to contradict themselves.One minute its global warming and the next its a new ice age.... I repeat my argument in a previous thread regarding the massive contribution to the hole in the ozone layer caused by cows breaking wind. Perhaps we should have a cow emission tax rather than an airline fuel tax.
So let's just move back a step. I'm going to suggest that the so-called experts that fly helicopters have got it all wrong and that they should actually fly backwards everywhere. This is based on gut feeling and a couple of documentaries I flicked through on the discovery channel.
Nonsense isn't it, but hey, it's a belief I hold for no other reason than that I can't be bothered to find out what happens with helicopters because I don't use them every day.
Ozone isn't the whole problem. If you were paying attention in class you'd be aware that carbon and particulate emmissions are very large players in the problem. Amongst the biggest concern is high-level particulate pollution and the masking effect they have on temperatures and solar penetration at ground level.
The well documented change in solar gain in the US in the days following 9/11 when commerical traffic was grounded is clear empirical fact. No amount of "belief" that it didn't happen will change that.
I'm not a luddite, but I can be justifiably called a hypocrite. I drive a car and I've played with the ecu to get more power. That led to increased fuel consumption and particulate pollution. I've now removed the chip and reverted to standard performance and much less smoke as I've realised the error of my ways.
Helicopter, I know your views but frankly I struggle to understand them. I'm not advocating we go to hair shirts and live on what we can get out of a windowbox, but a little more thought and a bit less "me first and sod the lot of you" wouldn't go amiss on this hunk of rock we call home.
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah I know and I don?t care. Those planes would have flown without me on them and I got to see me wife and kids every week.
|
Yeah I know and I don?t care. Those planes would have flown without me on them and I got to see me wife and kids every week.
But at the prices you paid there's a fair bet half the passengers were making the journey because they could and not because they had to.
I understand your desire to see the wife and kids (I keep typing wide and kids, which is a typo too far!) as I too work away from home a lot of the time. Thing is, if it weren't artifically cheap, you may have done what I have done in the past and worked through a "long" week and a half for a 5 day weekend every other week or made some such similar arrangement.
Sorry for picking on you with the 25tonnes remark, it could easily be applied to most of us here. It just really shocks me sometimes how people are so indifferent about their impact on the environment we live in.
25 tonnes. Not kilos, tonnes. Of gas. Do you have any idea what 25 tonnes of CO2 looks like, the volume it takes up? That's addressed to the backroom, not Dave in particular.
|
Ok, to get this in perspective, 1kg of CO2 at sea level amounts to 509litres in volume.
So 12.725million litres.
That's quite a lot.
|
Thats a building 50m long 50m wide and 5m high.
Large industrial unit?
I thought that would be easier to picture.
|
Do you have any idea what 25 tonnes of CO2 looks like, the volume it takes up?
Unless I've got the decimal point in the wrong place I reckon that at atmospheric pressure at sea level it's approximately 610,900,000 litres, which is approximately an 85 metre cube.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
hang on 1000 litres in a cubic metre, so thats 610900 cubic metres or a 781.6 metre cube.
|
hang on 1000 litres in a cubic metre, so thats 610900 cubic metres or a 781.6 metre cube.
No, the cube root of 610900 is 85 (approx).
On the other hand, according to www.icbe.com/carbondatabase/objectcalculator.asp ......
--
L\'escargot.
|
P*V= (m/MW)*R*T
Yup, sorry, my first one was, er, out.
So that's REALLY big then.
|
>> Do >> you have any idea what 25 tonnes of CO2 looks like, >> the volume it takes up? Unless I've got the decimal point in the wrong place I reckon that at atmospheric pressure at sea level it's approximately 610,900,000 litres, which is approximately an 85 metre cube. --
Or, according to www.icbe.com/carbondatabase/objectcalculator.asp
it's 13904 cubic metres which is a 24 metre cube.
Doh!
--
L\'escargot.
|
Actually the flights I caught were full of suits whose companies probably don?t give a rat?s what a ticket cost. Believe me, sunseekers do not come over here.
This environment stuff. You know what? I really, really, really don?t care. Don?t care about the human race, few gorgeous people on telly but 99% of the population are just scumbags. Live, die, not bothered. Maybe I care about animals and stuff (not really) but the planet doesn?t, it has a history of periodically wiping out nearly all life on earth and it will continue to do so. Don?t kid yourself we?ll be here for millions of years like the dinos, ha, fat chance, we?re too stupid, maybe a few millennia. And when we?re gone this run-of the-mill, one of several billion planets will carry on spinning just like it always has, none the worse or better for us having been here. It doesn?t care, IT?S A ROCK and neither do I.
Save the planet? Save it for what? For whom? For when?
Don't care about pandas, aligators or fish
Don't care if Norfolk sinks
Don't care if New York ends up under a kilometre of ice
DON?T CARE
I realise my views are reductionist and not to everyone?s taste, so no hate mail please, I have the mother and father of all hangovers, spent all day on all fours over the toilet bowl.
|
I realise my views are reductionist and not to everyone?s taste, so no hate mail please, I have the mother and father of all hangovers, spent all day on all fours over the toilet bowl.
Said with refreshing honesty. And with no amusing typos, which I would usually associate with a laptop keyboard full of sick.
Good lad!
:oD
|
Wifey is absolutely gonna kill me when I get home $$, I?m dreading it.
Now, that?s something I care about!
|
|
LOL - Great post Dave and you have my sympathy - best laugh I've had in a long time.
|
"Save it for what? For whom? "
Well, your children, for a start. Those ones you like to come home and see?
|
|
Yeah I know and I don?t care. Those planes would have flown without me on them and I got to see me wife and kids every week.
They certainly would have flown without you and would have used less fuel because you weren't on it. Flying is hugely fuel inefficient. To be fair, airline ticket prices should be calculated using the combined weight of the passenger and their baggage.
|
|
I've flown from Leeds to Exeter and back again a few times in the last month, simply because it works out about 20 quid cheaper than driving and takes 45 minutes.
|
OK $$ -
I have to admit that I do have some sympathy with your argument and was playing devils advocate and winding you up to a certain extent...
What gets me ranting are the differing crackpot theories that are spouted by tree huggers intent on pursuing their own agenda irrespective of how it affects anyone else.I have no idea who is an expert and who isn't any more. Whose theory is correct , whose is speculation based on idiocy perpetuated by the media?
I do care what happens to our children and grandchildren but let me ask you exactly how you managed to calculate that Dave has contributed 25 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere - preferably in one syllable words so I can follow -
and btw did a mod remove one of Daves posts , I thought he had one that admitted to loads of journeys between Warsaw and UK?
I am paying attention in class and am willing to be educated.
|
I do care what happens to our children and grandchildren but let me ask you exactly how you managed to calculate that Dave has contributed 25 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere - preferably in one syllable words so I can follow - and btw did a mod remove one of Daves posts , I thought he had one that admitted to loads of journeys between Warsaw and UK? I am paying attention in class and am willing to be educated.
Nothing grand, clever or otherwise. I googled into carbonneutral.com, which is hardly the root of all scientific good as it has an agender to pursue. There are some more precise figures kicking around out there but the limitations of my net access (firewall at work and reliant on GPRS at the farm until next Monday) prevent me from digging them up and them.
From what I'm able to establish, carbonneutral take a bunch of parameters based on take-off, landing and likely cruising speed/altitude to get a rough figure. They do something similar for car use; the more miles you do per year the less co2 per mile as they seem to assume less cold-starts per mile travelled.
What it does manage to do is grab people's attention. I did dig up some hard data a while back and they aren't a million miles adrift on their aircraft figures. Obviously if you are on a 120 seater vs a 500 seater the figures will skew, but the numbers are still bloomin' enormous.
|
Hmmm $$ - going back to being serious for a minute it all seems just a bit ever so slightly vague...know what I mean.
I'll have a look when I get home and get my calculator out and see if I can make some sense of it .
|
|
Agreed, it is less than concrete, but there are a huge number of variables. The figures they produce seem to be based around "average" aircraft outputs, sizes, capacities etc.
|
"They certainly would have flown without you and would have used less fuel because you weren't on it."
Are you calling me fat?
|
"They certainly would have flown without you and would have used less fuel because you weren't on it." Are you calling me fat?
Nah, he's saying you're not aerodynamic :D
|
|
I think we should call Dave "Chunks" from now on.
|
I think we should call Dave "Chunks" from now on.
In reference to the vomiting, or the drag coefficient? Or both?
Good job you're a mod $$ otherwise I reckon we'd be in danger of being edited...
|
|
I know. I was 'doing an Adski', as I'm sure it'll come to be known.
|
I?d laugh but I know I?d chuck
Anyhoo, who knows how much aviation fuel is used to get little old me from London to Warsaw (1000 miles). I know it takes about 130 litres in the car.
I?m 90 kilos, so almost my weight and a half in petrol. I?m shocked.
|
|
Despite the fact that there is a world market for Avtur, you still find that freighter a/c, mostly, will tanker fuel, partic. from the US, if they are carrying light loads of freight and are departing from and arriving at long runways, so that they can lift/land within limits. Particularly common with flights ex E Coast USA to W Africa.
|
Ah - but oil is lighter than water. 130 litres does not equal 130 kilos.
Incidentally, I've flown on Lot Polish Airlines quite a bit. I think they still run on coal.
----
Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
|
We could convert all plane engines to run on gas and then if we can find a way of getting a pipeline from the cows backsides via the farmyard to the airline we'll have solved the energy crisis at a stroke.
Well it sounds feasible to me .....or am I missing something here?
|
|
Nah, you're on the wrong tack with that. Pigs, that's the answer. Gotta get those pigs flying.
|
Yep - Alan , I can see it now - in flight refuelling via a lump of gas pipe on the plane directly to a squadron of flying pigs -
Quick - wheres Patently before anyone else steals the idea....
OH come on Mods - this thread must be locked soon - its not even Friday...
|
Is it Friday at last? I don't think so.
Back to motoring then please...and I'm marking this thread for when the cleaning shift come in later... :-)
EDIT: And after all that, I was pipped at the post!!!
smokie. BR Moderator
|
It's certainly relevant to motoring; the motorist's fuel tax continues to be squeezed, supposedly on environmental grounds, whilst the airline industry remains untaxed on fuel use.
As the article points out, if this policy is pursued without change, the motorist will be required to emit zero CO2 if the UK is to meet its CO2 targets.
That puts this jerrymandering bunch of whoopsies we laughingly refer to as a government in a bit of a bind. Do they admit they have to find a way if reducing air travel, disenfranchising those for whom a cheap break in Southern Europe is a major source of pleasure and relaxation, or do they continue to pinch motorists.
Either way, the way we use our cars will be impacted. Restrictions on air travel will increase the pressure on the ferry ports and roads that feed them and will increase rail travel usage as people seek to holiday closer to home. No more the quiet motoring months of July and August (bank holiday and weekends by the coast excepted).
|
"jerrymandering bunch of whoopsies we laughingly refer to as a government "
Any chance we could pursuade them to stop breathing in order to cut down on CO2 emissions?
|
You could think that what is about to happen to Texas is biblical retribution. Even that the gas guzzlers stuck in the traffic jams to get away are creating a poison cloud that sucks in the hurricane. But according to a very impressive expert talking on the news tonight, 'global warming' and hurricanes are not in any way connected. The world is warming up anyway as it does and always has done from time to time. And global warming is not causing these hurricanes anyway.
HJ
|
"You could think that what is about to happen to Texas is biblical retribution."
I don't, but I like to think that George Bush Junior does...
|
"The world is warming up anyway as it does and always has done from time to time. "
How true.
The last great Ice Age lasted from approx 110,000BC to 20,000BC. Glaciers in Scotland over 1 mile deep.
Then due to clestial motion , it all warmed up.. and is likely to do so for the bext 30,000 years and then reverse again. Human activity just accelerates the process (maybe a lot).
I'm waiting to see hippos in Traflagar Square:-) - they were there several 100,000 years ago. Of course any low lying areas will be flooded..so any long term hopes for Holland and New Orleans are wishful thinking in the next two centuries.
But long before then oil will be $150 per barrel. Yes ther's lots of reserves : mainly Canadian tar sands which to extract requires mining (open pit) , heating (natural gas) and refining. Awful lot of heavy metal contamination means the process is much more contaminating than coal mining. And the capital investment is HUGE. $billions.
So expect the £2 per litre in 7 years time .. or less.
madf
|
It's not really a matter of whether the earth's temperature changes of its own accord, which of course it does, but how fast it's happening and why. These graphs, comparing temperature change in the last 140 years with the last 1000 years are a little frightening (go on, guess what we started doing in large amounts around 140 years ago). Of course it may just be a coincidence:
carto.eu.org/article2505.html
|
You could think that what is about to happen to Texas is biblical retribution. Even that the gas guzzlers stuck in the traffic jams to get away are creating a poison cloud that sucks in the hurricane. But according to a very impressive expert talking on the news tonight, 'global warming' and hurricanes are not in any way connected. The world is warming up anyway as it does and always has done from time to time. And global warming is not causing these hurricanes anyway. HJ
>>
Another expert on the front page of the Independent today disagrees: news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article31451...e
Which expert do you want to believe?
|
'Expert' is an interesting word.
Comes from the english words:
ex - meaning has-been
and
spurt - meaning a drip under pressure
;)
|
"Which expert do you want to believe?"
The one that says we can carry on regardless! However, what I want to believe ain't necessarily so, and I think madf has it right:
"Human activity just accelerates the process (maybe a lot)."
Sadly, our long-term prospects are not good for all sorts of reasons (see 'After Man' by Dougal Dixon) but not many of them are connected to motoring...
|
"Which expert do you want to believe?"
I cannot reply in the positive but in the negative.
Virtually NO economists or stock market analysts got oil prices correct. Most analysts were saying £40 per barrel in 2005 falling to $25 by 2007-2010.. last year and early this.
The US IEA - an official site has a January 2005 forecats which is very similar relying on:
increased output from Iraq!
increased output from Saudi - mainly havy crude which COST to refine
and huge increases in output from Canadian tar sands,(Reserves equal nearly to Saudi)
The shallowness and politicisation of the IEA's position can be summed up in the fact that at $25 per gallon Canadian Tar Sands oil would not justify the $billions spent on it.
So distrust all economists and especially anyone employed by the US Government, financed by it or in any way influenced by it.
It was President Johnson (I think) who said US motoring US style was "the American way of life" and no Government could or would change it.
So excess consumption will continue until market forces act. Mind you I expect teh US may have recession in 2006 or 7 which may moderate demand and prices for a while.
But as Western oil refinery capacity is stretched and no new refineries are planned for the US or UK to make any meaningful imapct on the output of aviation current trends will continue.
See the UK Government planning the doubling or airport capacity etc.
Sheer short term blindness (what can one expect of a politician like Mr Prescott who can't walk 100 metres?) so - fluctuations apart - more price increases due next year...
madf
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
