The Oil Drum

This is a guest post by Cameron Leckie, of ASPO Australia.

The organisation that I work for depends upon air travel for the movement of several thousand trainees around the country each year. I have been working on some peak oil risk management/mitigation strategies and the future of air travel is a key requirement that needs to be explored. This is a start on identifying the prospects for air travel in the post peak oil world. Ironically, this essay was planned whilst flying from Brisbane to Melbourne for one of this organisation's courses.

This is a guest post by Christopher Smith who is a Captain with the airline BA Connect. It was first published in December 2006, the discussion generated then can be read here. The post is based on a presentation (pdf) made to the oil depletion conference held in London last year.

Aviation is one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the world, growing at 2.4 times the rate of world GDP. The industry consumes over 5 million barrels of oil per day worldwide, almost one tenth of all the oil used for transportation. In the UK, according to the Department for Transport, the UK aviation industry is growing at approximately 5% per year while its fuel consumption is growing at 3% per year.

This is a guest post by Christopher Smith who is a Captain with the airline BA Connect. The post is based on a presentation (pdf) made to the oil depletion conference held in London last month.

Aviation is one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the world, growing at 2.4 times the rate of world GDP. The industry consumes over 5 million barrels of oil per day worldwide, almost one tenth of all the oil used for transportation. In the UK, according to the Department for Transport, the UK aviation industry is growing at approximately 5% per year while its fuel consumption is growing at 3% per year.

Carbon dioxide emissions from aviation vary directly with kerosene consumption. The resulting CO2 from UK aviation accounted for 5% of the national total in 2003. The UK Environmental Audit Committee forecasts the value will be 10 to 12% in 2020 and could rise to 40% by 2050 if not checked. The unconstrained growth of aviation CO2 emissions is incompatible with the UK government's target to reduce national CO2 levels to 40% of the 1990 level by 2050.