Although the British Airline Pilots Association appear to have succumbed to the Man made global warming propaganda, they have nevertheless produced a comprehensive rebuttal to the ‘aviation is bad for the environment brigade’. If you would like to arm yourself with knowledge with which to defend your profession then it can be found here:
http://www.balpa.org/BALPA-Camp/Avia...orrections.pdf (from the BALPA public website).
Pages 44-47 are particularly interesting. An important point made is that in the UK only 40% of trains run on electrified lines – the vast bulk on the commuter routes in the SE. Many trains running between London and the North are diesel powered. The not exactly aviation friendly Commission for Integrated Transport published a report
http://www.cfit.gov.uk/docs/2001/rac...exec/index.htm where it is admitted that “emissions (from high speed diesel trains) are greater than the equivalent air journey”.
A close look at the Virgin Trains website
http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/gogreener/tandc.aspx (Go Greener , terms and conditions) reveals the following data for their latest CrossCountry Voyager trains:
Virgin Trains CrossCountry - Voyager
Notes
Data in italics were provided by Virgin Trains
Assumptions
Assume fuel consumption per train km is standard for all Virgin CrossCountry services
Fuel consumption for the Voyager fleet, year 2005/6 99,000,000 litres gas oil
Total fleet kilometres, year 2005/6 30,107,318 km
Fuel consumption for the Voyager fleet, year 2005/6 3.3 litres/km (derived from above)
Average number of seats per train 217
Load factor of Virgin CrossCountry trains 0.55
Average number of passengers per train 119 (derived from above)
Fuel consumption per passenger 0.028 litres/pass.km (derived from above)
CO2 emissions for gas oil 2.69 kg/litre (Defra 2005)
Conversion miles to km 1.609
CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre 0.0741 kgCO2/pass.km (derived from above)
CO2 emissions per passenger mile 0.1192 kgCO2/pass.km (derived from above)
Source: ECCM Ltd 2007
The interesting figure is the fuel consumption per passenger. We can readily compare that with the aircraft we fly. On the domestic routes that I fly, the Voyager uses only 20% less fuel per passenger than my 80% loaded airbus. A somewhat surprising figure for many people I would suspect.