Is cutting back on such air travel an option? Yes, you can always buy so-called "green tags" to offset the emissions from your travel, find alternative modes of transportation (trains can offer a romtantic alternative in some regions), or organize "staycations" instead of elaborate journeys abroad. But for those airline trips where these options are out of the question, what else exists?
Commercially, current options are few and far between. But there is hope. This week I met the colleagues of a man, Bertrand Piccard, who plans to circle the world in a solar airplane called the Solar Impulse, stopping five times along the way to top up his hybrid solar battery. By day, the plane will absorb sunlight on its broad, solar-paneled wings by day, gaining altitude as it goes. By night, the plane will coast, slowly descending while propellors on the wings turn in the apparent wind, regenerating battery energy all the way. Mr. Piccard's purpose? To show that solar flight is possible.
Although solar flight may be far from commerciable at the moment, think what market change could come if investors prioritized this kind of energy over jet fuel. The concept of such change is not all that novel. On the contrary, Mr. Piccard's purpose should be familiar. On a field in Kitty Hawk, Arkansas, it was also the purpose of the Wright Brothers. And look what we're doing with their dreams now.
The Economist, at least, seems to think sufficiently well of the project to cover it in the Economist Technology Quarterly. My hope is that such options will soon spring from the pages of such magazines to the market. http://www.economist.com/node/16295620?story_id=16295620
A made-for-Hollywood type video promoting the project, or at least its daytime attributes, is online at http://www.solarimpulse.com/.
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