Lower (Carbon) Footprint

Image by pbo31 via Flickr

News.com reported the other day that China is to build another 97 airports in the next 12 years. That’s a little over 8 new airports a year for the next twelve years at a cost estimated around $64 billion.

That’s great news if you are in the runway business but not so good if you are concerned about CO2 emissions! Having said that, as the TreeHugger blog put it:

there are 5,143 airports (paved runways) in the USA vs. 403 in China. That helps keep things in perspective…

The air transport industry is one of the fastest growing carbon polluters. Recent tests of planes by Airbus and Virgin flying fueled by biodiesel are one area we can look to to alleviate the problem. Although it has to be borne in mind that biodiesel has its own problems.

Two possibilities are using algal-based biofuel (which needn’t compete with food crops and thus doesn’t drive up food prices) or using Craig Venter’s idea of generating micro-organisms which manufacture fuels from atmospheric CO2!

Bullet trains can also help move people off planes but China already has (and is growing) a vast high speed rail network. Perhaps it is time for a similar investment by the US!

There is not going to be any one solution to the problems of CO2 created by transportation in the short-term but the good news is that lots of very clever people are working to crack this nut.