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| Goodbye Mr Chips |
We all know that flying is bad for the environment, I have just worked out how bad. I use the train whenever possible, but recently I have flown a lot of air miles on business trips. I calculated that in the last 14 months I have flown approximately 100,000 miles. Now, according to the brilliant Cambridge Physicist Professor David MacKay* if you are an average daily car commuter in the UK doing 30 miles per day at 33 miles per gallon, you will consume around 40 kWh / day of energy, roughly one third of your daily energy consumption. Assuming a plane flies 80% full, a single long haul return flight of say London to Bangalore (10,000 miles, a journey I made 7 times to Reva Electric Car Company HQ in the last 14 months) is the equivalent of consuming approx 30 kWh /day per trip! This year I was also a frequent short haul business flyer around Europe, setting up an EV distribution network. According to Mr MacKay, my 25,000 short haul air miles is equivalent to 60 kWh /day. So, this past year my energy consumption
just for flying was 270 kWh/day, the equivalent of driving 6 cars every day and more than twice the current total daily energy consumption per person in the UK. Nearly 200 tonnes of CO2 emitted! I am horrified and ashamed and hereby commit to invest in super fast broadband for skype and never again work in such a way.
* I recommend the very readable 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' by David JC MacKay. Download for free at
www.withouthotair.com
