Bounty/Fee: Effective Travel, London <-> Barcelona, what is most effective?

By Ben Yeoh @ 2022-09-22T19:03 (0)

Bounty/Fee: Effective Travel, London <-> Barcelona, what is most effective?

-Offering GBP200 (or offer) for short analysis on effective travel

-I need to travel from London to Barcelona, return

-All in considering emissions, opportunity cost (time, and what we could donate to) etc. is plane better than train, or not? (And possibly electric vehicle car even better?)

I’m offering GBP200 for an analysis of effective travel, specifically London to Barcelona, but would take any general principles.

My trip is (west) London to Barcelona (Marriott Hotel). I did this basic analysis (see below and notes), for 4 days at end of Nov 2022.

• Train, 12 hours, 2 changes. USD350-450.  Carbon est:  75 kg CO2 (eco passenger). Smog hydrocarbons at 67g
• Plane, 3-4 hours, no changes. Price: USD 150 - 200. Carbon est: 108 kg CO2 (according to eco passenger and google calculator, which has range 80 - 120 kg CO2 so at the low end very close to the train) Smog hydrocarbons at 45g (vs 67 for train)

But ecopassenger has other polluting impacts which are higher for train (smog hydrocarbons - this is an issue for air pollution and ozone).  It’s not clear to me from London which is immediately better. How damaging are smog hydrocarbons? Do I need to consider plane water vapour? How accurate are thes models?

Then I think you need to consider there is likely a USD100 - USD200 type of saving, possibly more. Assuming you could put eg. half of that into something impactful (even at worse, just some trees) would that negate the estimated extra carbon?

Possible consideration: My company will offset my plane flight in any case, with variable quality carbon offsets. (My company has a form of operational “net zero”in that it will offset its scope 1 + 2 carbon emissions, the offsets are not great quality but that anlaysis is beyond scope).

Does the extra time used up in train travel count for anything? Do I or should I consider any “social signalling” effects (if I am considered someone who some people will look to my actions).

London —> Barcelona, by Place vs Train vs Car (diesel) via ecopassenger model.

The estimates and inputs also have enough variance to me that suggests a +/- 25% on the carbon dioxide element can vary a lot by load and other factors.  Hm. I’m also a little bit worried about the strength of the methodology for instance much depends on the mix of the train, is it electric or diesel? The model is also a few years old.  Also the RFI factors, or the indirect non-carbon impacts eg water vapour in the air, are vary hard to model - and currently so inaccurate as to be missing in most models.

The Google model is close to the same but, eg these 3 flights below, are in the 82 to 94kg CO2 range which is close enough to the train estimate (depending on how you get to the airport and train). If you book this far in advance, the price saving is substantial. One can make the argument that using this saving, or even only half the saving, and placing that in a good impact investment or charity would be more impactful.

Another clear item is that cars running on diesel are poor choices. But that electric battery cars are actually better than trains with a national mix (ofc, grid in France is a lot nuclear). This shows the importance of the electrification of cars. Below is the journey in a 2 person electric car, Paris to Barcelona. Of course, there are other impacts to think about but on these electric cars seem winners.

valueOfWorkperHourInDollars = 50 to 500 // <- input your own ehre

timeTrainInHours = 11 to 13
increasedProductivityOnTrain = 2 to 5
valueOfTrain = timeTrainInHours * increasedProductivityOnTrain * valueOfWorkperHourInDollars

timePlaneInSky = 2 to 4
timeHassleBeforePlane = 1 to 4
productivityWhileInSky = 2 to 4
productivityWhileHassle = 0
valueOfPlane = valueOfWorkperHourInDollars * (timePlaneInSky * productivityWhileInSky - timeHassleBeforePlane * (productivityWhileHassle-1))

{
  valueOfTrain: valueOfTrain,
  valueOfPlane: valueOfPlane
}