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"have to" being, to some extent, a function of these flights being priced at a heavy discount relative to their environmental impact.
That's a fair statement. I'm not well versed enough in commercial aviation to be able to judge how much flights would cost with externalities priced in.
The IEA have an estimate of €190 per tonne. Which is €400 per passenger on a return transatlantic flight (assuming no mark-up). But there are already some taxes and surcharges on flights, and some of that is carbon-related, so a "full cost" price wouldn't be €400 more than today's. AIUI they use a "harm" model to try and land on that number, i.e. X gigatons of carbon => Y amount of climate change => Z economic damage.
Another way to look at it is "if each tonne of carbon can be burned only once, and in a scenario where future carbon is committed towards manufacture renewables (or nuclear capacity), how many kWh of renewable/nuclear electricity can be bought with 1t of carbon". That yields a much larger number.
Or you can look at it through a carbon capture and storage lens. Industrial CCS yields a much lower number, but it's talking about capturing from factory boiler exhaust streams, where you can have the plant capture the CO2 at source. Not an option on a jet airliner. Direct air capture (ground-based stations mopping up aircraft exhaust) is an order of magnitude more expensive, currently in the $1000/tonne range, you're trying to vacuum gas out of the air that's at a 400ppm concentration by mass.
Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42853633 - Jan 2025 (79 comments)
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Having to drive in bumper to bumper traffic versus chilling in a large chair either working on a laptop, watching a movie or just sleeping (or well if you can't afford it in which case this is very irreverent due to ticket prices).
Large????
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I was assuming the end goal was to make supersonic flight way cheaper than it was for Concorde?
Even if Boom achieves their goal of bringing a certified airliner to production, it's still going to be a relatively small plane. 64-80 passengers according to their website. That means the cost of the plane, crew, fuel, etc. will be split among a small number of passengers. Fuel burn at supersonic speeds is also going to be higher per passenger mile than traditional airliners. No matter what this is going to end up…
According to the data I could find, the Overture is advertised as having fuel efficiency similar to the Embraer 175, while carrying the same number of passengers.
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. The idea isn't to just replicate Concorde's flights across the Atlantic Ocean - or any stretch of water for that matter. Their plan would be to have this thing flying over land. The noise issue will be solved either through some feat of engineering or political lobbying. The cynic in me believes it will be mostly the latter.
I super do not want even a muffled supersonic boom crashing over my house! It would definitely breed some significant resentment against the rich to have my house even gently shaking day by day. My gut tells me this is in no way a solvable problem. But I too fear that after it's built, it'll be the LLM story of "yes we had to illegally access & use every book & piece of art in existence to train this, but now that we…
As someone who travels cross-atlantic semi-occasionally my price threshold for a 50% shorter flight is 25% increased cost. This is coming from a relatively well off middle-aged software engineer. It is hard to think that this tech will ever be common besides a few "high status" (NY->London) routes like the concord was. It is my understanding that fuel costs increase as speed increases so there is no way this could ev…
Efficiency actually increases the faster you go at some point until a certain limit due to being able to ride the 'boom' turning the energy required to keep the plane up into energy that pushes you forward, there's also special things that happen to friction when you pierce the barrier which are still being researched. Flying higher also means less molecules hitting your cruiser.
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> super sonic flights over ground just to save some time That’s the intention. My question is why others’ time is of so little value to you?
I don't know, I just never felt the pressure of time past the age of around 17 so I cannot relate anymore. I started to enjoy live significantly more by not worrying about such things.
An hour I spend stuck in traffic we're at a airport is a conversation I'll never be able to have with a loved one when they're gone.
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. The idea isn't to just replicate Concorde's flights across the Atlantic Ocean - or any stretch of water for that matter. Their plan would be to have this thing flying over land. The noise issue will be solved either through some feat of engineering or political lobbying. The cynic in me believes it will be mostly the latter.