Commit 2131a2d18d8f9df8440e662ff4d19bcdf5b18f7d

Authored by Didier BARRET
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content.yml
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273 273 this tool enables to compute the footprint of a larger number of travels,
274 274 making some assumptions, e.g. to model connecting flights.
275 275  
276   - For short distance travels, the CO<sub>2</sub> footprint associated with trains
277   - is calculated and added to the air travel footprint.
  276 + #For short distance travels, the CO<sub>2</sub> footprint associated with trains
  277 + #is calculated and added to the air travel footprint.
278 278  
279 279 ### Original Motivation
280 280  
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291 291 Carrying scientific research requires traveling all across the world,
292 292 but time has come to critically look at the way we carry research,
293 293 with the aim of raising awareness and reducing our environmental impact,
294   - whenever possible.
295   - In this context, it is worth looking at what the carbon footprint
296   - of travels associated with the development of a large project,
297   - such as the Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit,
298   - is and implement actions to reduce it.
299   - The consortium involved in the development of the X-ray Integral Field Unit
300   - for the flagship Athena Space X-ray observatory of the European Space Agency
301   - involves currently 13 countries, 11 in Europe plus Japan and the United States.
302   - The amount of traveling required for the project is necessarily large.
303   - As PI of the X-IFU, my original motivation was to estimate what large meant,
304   - as an input to discussing actions to reduce our footprint with the members of the consortium.
  294 + whenever possible.
305 295  
306 296 - title: Which data are used?
307 297 content: |
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326 316 although often discrepancies are noticed in some communications,
327 317 more particularly for long distance flights.
328 318  
329   - Relying on one calculator is therefore not possible.
330   - This is why I am computing estimates based on different methods.
331   - This tool thus enables to compute your travel carbon footprint (for round trips),
332   - based on data provided by 4 independent state-of-the-art emission calculators:
  319 + Relying on one calculator is therefore not possible. This tool thus enables to compute your travel carbon footprint (for round trips),
  320 + based on data provided by 6 independent state-of-the-art emission calculators:
333 321  
334 322 1. the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO),
335 323 2. the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
336   - 3. the ATMOSFAIR German Carbon offsetting company, and finally
337   - 4. the French Environment & Energy Management Agency (ADEME).
  324 + 3. the ATMOSFAIR German Carbon offsetting company,
  325 + 4. the French Environment & Energy Management Agency (ADEME)
  326 + 5. the data provided on the KLM website to introduce their CO2 compensation service (KLM)
  327 + 6. the MyClimate Carbon offseting company (used by Lufthansa)
338 328  
339   - ICAO, DEFRA and ATMOSFAIR have their methodology very well described
  329 + ICAO, DEFRA and MyClimate, ATMOSFAIR have their methodology very well described
340 330 (see resources section below).
341 331  
342   - I have enquired to ADEME to get more about their methodology.
343 332 ADEME and DEFRA provide mean emission factors as a function of flight distance.
344 333 ADEME considers seat capacity and DEFRA gives emission factors
345 334 as a function of seat type (from economy to first class seat).
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352 341  
353 342 - title: How does this tool work?
354 343 content: |
355   - For estimating your own travel footprint,
356   - the only thing you have to provide is an excel file
357   - which contains only the different final destinations that you traveled to,
358   - while the main city (origin) is entered on the form below.
359   - For estimating the travel footprint of a conference,
360   - you must provide the city from which each participant departs from
361   - and enter the host city of the conference in the form below.
362   -
363   - The tool then decodes the list of cities in the input excel sheet
364   - (please check the spelling when filling it up),
365   - and finds the closest airport within 100 km
366   - (large airport first and and if no large airports exists, it finds a medium one)
367   - using the google geolocator.
368   - This returns the longitude and latitude of the closest airport.
369   - Cities that cannot be located are ignored from the computation.
370   - To resolve ambiguity between cities of similar names (e.g. Cambridge),
371   - I require the name of the country.
372   -
373   - From the longitude and latitude of two airports
374   - (e.g. the host city of a conference and the departing city of an attendee),
375   - the tool computes the great circle distance (GCD).
376   - This is the shortest path a plane can follow.
377   - Short trips (e.g. shorter than 300 km) are accounted by trains.
378   - Traveling between cities often involve connexions.
379   - Here I consider a 5% increase of the GCD, as a mean value,
380   - understanding that it may be less on long flights and more on shorter flights.
381   -
382   - The emission factors of DEFRA include a 8% uplift to account for the fact that planes,
383   - even during direct flight, do not strictly follow the shortest path,
  344 + The tool starts by decoding the origin cities listed in the form, and geolocate them.
  345 + It then decodes the destination cities and geolocate them as well.
  346 +
  347 + Cities that cannot be located are ignored from the computation. To resolve ambiguity
  348 + between cities of similar names (e.g. Cambridge), the name of the country is required.
  349 +
  350 + From the longitude and lattitude of the origin and destination cities, the great
  351 + circle distance is computed. This is the shortest path a plane can follow. However,
  352 + traveling between cities often involves connexion. A 5% increase of the great circle
  353 + distance is considered as a mean value.
  354 +
  355 + DEFRA, ICAO, Atmosfair and MyClimate include uplift factors to account for the fact
  356 + than planes, even during direct flight, do not strictly follow the shortest path,
384 357 e.g. to avoid bad weather conditions.
385   - ICAO adds some constants depending on the flight distance:
386   - the GCD correction factor is 50 km for GCD less than to 550 km,
387   - 100 km for GCD between 550 and 5500 km, and 125 km for for GCD above 5500 km.
388   - ATMOSFAIR adds a systematic 50 km to the GCD.
389   - For ADEME, there is no indication on whether any GCD correction applies,
390   - so I will assume the ICAO GCD correction.
391 358  
392 359 CO<sub>2</sub> emissions per passenger take into consideration the load factor
393 360 and are based only on passenger operations
394 361 (i.e. fuel burn associated with belly freight is not charged to the passenger).
  362 + From the travel distance, and the emission coefficients, the tool computes the amount
  363 + of CO2eq generated by each flight. The user can select one or more data providers,
  364 + and a mean value will be reported if more than one provider is considered.
395 365  
396   - Given the corrected GCD so computed,
397   - I use either the mean emission coefficients or the linear functions
398   - fitting the data of the on-line calculators.
399   - Note that there are no error bars on the estimates and very little literature on the topic.
400   - Only ATMOSFAIR returns whenever available,
401   - the data from different possible flights,
402   - considering different airlines.
403   - It also returns the the average over all airlines.
404   -
  366 +
405 367 # Second row of "blocks"
406 368 - blocks:
407 369  
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426 388 ICAO, on the other hand does not include a multiplier,
427 389 waiting for the scientific community to settle on a value.
428 390 So 1.9 seems reasonable, but keep in mind that it comes with some uncertainty.
429   - You may want to select the ATMOSFAIR forcing index,
430   - instead of the 1.9 constant.
431   - The multiplier reaches about 2.8 for flights longer than 5000 km.
432 391  
433 392 - title: Which seat category are you considering?
434 393 content: |
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441 400 - title: What about uncertainties?
442 401 content: |
443 402 I believe that each estimate has an uncertainty between 10 and 25%
444   - (really this is a best guess, and not substantiated by any statistical analysis and it could be more probably),
445   - the uncertainty being smaller for shorter flights for which there are more data.
  403 + (really this is a best guess, and not substantiated by any statistical analysis and it could be more probably).
446 404 I would therefore refrain from using the numbers derived as absolute values.
447   - The results given should be considered indicative, although likely in the right ball park,
448   - for the assumptions that I make, and the approximation I use,
449   - e.g. in fitting ICAO and ATMOSFAIR data.
450   - For flights of average distance less than a few thousands kilometers,
451   - the results agree reasonably well, between the various estimators,
452   - which is a good sign.
453 405 Larger differences are found when long distance flights are considered.
454 406 In all cases, the estimates can be used for relative comparisons.
455 407  
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478 430 Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile
479 431 - [ICAO](https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/carbonoffset/pages/default.aspx)
480 432 Carbon Emissions Calculator
  433 + - [KLM data] (https://www.klm.com/travel/nl_en/prepare_for_travel/fly_co2_neutral/all_about_sustainable_travel/index.htm)
  434 + - [MyClimate] (https://www.myclimate.org)
481 435 - L. Hackel [travel footprint calculator](https://lhackel.shinyapps.io/travel_footprint/)
482 436 based on DEFRA emission factors
483 437  
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