Futurology

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Planes, trains, or automobiles: Which has the lowest carbon footprint? (pv-magazine-usa.com)

submitted 1 year ago by genesis@kbin.social to c/Futurology@kbin.social

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Three industry professionals traveled 3,000 miles across America. Their mission: to dissect their carbon footprint. What they found was a complex calculation, with results more tightly-knit than anticipated – and a CO2 revelation.

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[–] zoe@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ships and trains are way efficient. Airplanes should be used for 2000miles trips and beyond (or 1500, any number at which they would emit the same amount of co2 as land transportation)

[–] athos77@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The article takes into consideration quite a number of considerations, and concludes that - for the very specific journey that the authors took and were analyzing - their train journey actually "cost" over 366kg more CO2 emissions per person than a plane would have been. That said, it did note that

Thanks to the absence of jet contrails and their associated water vapor emissions – a major component of non-CO2 radiative forcing – we estimate that our total climate impact was 37% less than if we had flown, even if our CO2 emissions were 28% higher.

Regarding making the same journey by car, they say:

Carpooling from Boston, whether in an internal combustion gas engine or an electric vehicle, emerged as the least emission-intensive travel option for this journey. Additionally, driving could be a faster alternative to Amtrak if the team rotated driving responsibilities and continued without extended breaks. [Snipping a bunch of their considerations here, but feel free to read the article.] Consequently, emissions for each traveler in the electric vehicle stand at just over 18% of the equivalent emissions from a direct flight and 25% of the emissions from the predominantly diesel-powered train journey.