I wish. But unfortunately, both synthetic fuels (e-fuels) and offsets are severely lacking in terms of actually contributing to solving the problem. We do not have enough energy to produce enough synthetic fuels to cover the same amount of oil and gas that we use today. And carbon offsets are in most cases not a reliable way to actually keep carbon out of the atmosphere long-term.
> Good luck forcing quality of life reduction as an explicit policy goal
Climate change will be the greatest quality of life reduction that humanity has ever faced.
Part of the problem is that people consider being able to travel that much as "quality of life". There is nothing in human psychology that requires us to be as mobile as we are today. In fact, it is harmful that this degree of mobility is deemed "normal" by our western culture. This has to change.
We’re not jetting around at Mach 9 today. Or tomorrow. Rotating detonation engines [1] are closer to basic research than commerce. The earliest this could be technologically viable is in the 2030s; commercially, the 2050s. (That is ambitious.)
At the point we might consider scaling such kit, our options will be less limited (or we’ll have consigned ourselves to doom). If they aren’t, we can choose not to use it for passenger travel.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_detonation_engine
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/50689/carbon-...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed...
https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de...
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-era-of-the-great-...
> Good luck forcing quality of life reduction as an explicit policy goal.
Either we chose to do it willingly or we'll be forced to do it.
One is chose frugality, the other is forced poverty, either way we'll eventually get there
> we chose to do it willingly or we'll be forced to do it
These outcomes are distributed differently.
Because I'm funding their actions since 20 years now, and I wonder if I should switch to something else, like Exxon maybe.
Or... I should stop giving indirectly any €€€ to Exxon and alike, and give all the gains to Greenpeace instead.
That's not very convincing. In a perfect world with perfect people and infinite money we could indeed do a lot of crazy things, but then again we have to deal with reality
Your problem is based on a Mach 9 proposal and technology we don’t really have yet. We’re both necessarily speculating.
Well, until it is solved (and it clearly isn’t- carbon offsets are basically bullshit), maybe we should work on that rather than making the amount of stuff to offset even bigger?
Forcing quality of life reduction is going to be hard enough without the world’s 1% (i.e. us) finding new ways to spew out carbon by jetting around at Mach9
False economy. Developing e.g. rotating detonation engines requires solving flame front, detonation mechanics, additive manufacturing and materials science problems. (Off the top of my head.) Do you really not see any interdisciplinary applications for any of those?
This is the failure of top-down industry planning and scientific regulation: you miss the unexpected stuff.
This is the failure of lack of scientific regulation: you go head first in the wall.
Do both. Does this investment in hypersonic transportation somehow prevent others from pursuing carbon reduction and cheaper transport technologies?
This is solvable with synthetic fuels and offsets.
> work on ways to reduce travel altogether
Good luck forcing quality of life reduction as an explicit policy goal. Or betting on less contact widening of our circles of empathy in the way we must to address global, long-term problems like climate change.