Can economically friendly flight be achieved?

With the world’s ever more important need for global travel, whether it be personal, business or even a short holiday, can we, as a society, unite together and help prevent this modern necessity from harming the needs of future generations? The ever growing demand for this commercial travel is causing devastating effects on the earth’s environment and atmosphere. Air travel alone accounts for 3% of all carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources, so the need to lower this figure is ever more present.

Can “eco-friendly flight” ever be achieved? The answer to this question is complex and complicated, however the large aviation company easyjet have designed a plane which claims it can achieve this eco friendly goal. The ecojet is proof that, yes, eco friendly flight can be achieved and will within 8 years. The easy jet engineers have planned to create a machine which will alone decrease the CO2 emissions by 50%, when compared to that of the latest commercial aircraft (boeing 737). The intended loss comes from three main design areas, these include rear mounted “open rotor” engines, which will compensate for 25% of the loss, a lightweight composite frame, 15% of the total loss. Finally the remaining 10%, interestingly, will not actually come direct from the plane but by improvements to the current air traffic control system. As an engineer student and a person who enjoys having to use a creative approach to solving a problem or task, it excites me to see if this idea is possible and the different designs approaches that will be taken to solve the issue. Easyjet have proven that they are more than capable of rising to the challenge of such a complex and dynamic task.

To design and create a plane that is capable of such low CO2 emissions is a brilliant idea, but if we investigate deeper into the concepts of commercial flight aviation and society as a whole, we notice a problem. As explained earlier the need for commercial flights and the need of global travel are increasing at a very large rate. Over the past 25 years the industry has seen a 310% increase, and it’s expected to rise! This also means that the amount of fuel per passenger has also seen a dramatic increase in the past 25 years. However, due to advances in technology the fuel consumptions of modern planes have also significantly improved over the past 25 years, but, with the massive increase in aviation flights this technology has failed to cope with the increase in demand of passenger flying. Therefore branding the new modern planes economically useless, beyond the aspect of simply keeping the harmful emissions produced at a constant. By the time the ecojet is physically created the amount of people using flight would, expectedly, increase. Consequently the ecojet may suffer from a similar problem, thus suggesting that eco friendly flight may not be possible.

This project has many issues from the research and development for the technical issues, such as will it work? To the demand from society to progress forward in solving the world’s environmental issues, it fascinates me too see if these problems can, and how they will be resolved and the difficulty in knowing whether the ecojet can accomplish its goal, of an environmentally healthy plane, is the obvious fact that it won’t be complete for eight years. The best possible chance we have of answering the question correctly is to view other planes or methods of transport that have attempted projects of sustainable technology, and analyse whether or not they have achieved there aim. As of yet there have been no eco planes that have been built. However, there have been huge technological experiments in the motor car industry which focus on designing and engineering a car that can achieve very low carbon emissions. For example Toyota have produced the prius, which attain unrivalled low amounts of harmful emissions. If the motor trade industry can achieve this kind of success then there is no reason to suggest that the ecojet can’t accomplish as well. I understand that a car and a plane are mechanically very different and that planes require a far larger power to drive their engines than that of the car, therefore producing more CO2. However, planes do have the ability to carry a higher amount of passengers, therefore with respect to the harmful emissions per person, surely a plane could produce the same amount of dangerous emissions as the prius. At the present time, modern planes produce roughly 97.5g per kilometre per person of CO2 and the Prius 74.3g per kilometre per person. The ecojet will generate less than 47g of CO2 per km per person. This figure is much less than that of the prius, obivously by the time the ecojet is created there may be a motor car which is capable of producing even less CO2. Clearly we notice that the motor trade is leading the way for environmental transport (only including planes and motor cars), and planes have a lot to learn from them, but it does show that they can be achieved. We could almost use the car as a way of peering into the future for planes, as cars have been around a lot longer and have been developed and improved for a more sustained period. Based on this evidence or theory, we could comment as to say that eco friendly flight through the ecojet is a real possibility.

Obviously, to answer the question "Can economically friendly flight be achieved?" as thoroughly and accurately as possible, I will have to conduct further research and analysis. I plan to do this using a variety of methods, including:

I have also decided to compare the ecojet to the Toyota Prius in a variety of ways, to understand if the ecojet can be environmentally friendly. These include:
- Will the Ecojet produce less harmful emissions per person when compared to the Prius?
- Over a selected journey, will the ecojet be more efficient when taking into account the other procedures required for a journey by plane. e.g loading passengers, taking off.
- What is the Benchmark set at for CO2 levels for each mode of transport and there achievements with respect to this?

This data will be accessed from various locations which are listed below:
- www.toyota.co.uk/prius
- Contacting easyjet direct - email
- www.dft.gov.uk

Secondary Resources
http://www.easyjet.com/EN/News/easyjet_ecojet.html
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/07/17/easyjet-ecojet/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/14/theairlineindustry.business