Why does a private plane burn 40 times more carbon than a - presumably much larger plane - commercial flight?
It's not that private planes burn more fuel - they burn far more fuel per passenger. According to this article, private jets consume 8X more CO2 "per passenger" than commercial jets. So if you're an elite and pretend that you give a sh&t about the environment, and then live a lifestyle that causes you personally to use more CO2 than the average Joe, you're a f*cking hypocrite and complete fraud who shouldn't have a voice.
How bad are private jets for the environment? | The Independent | The Independent
The reason travelling by private jet isn’t considered particularly green is because, although the amount of fuel burnt and therefore CO2 emitted is a lot lower than a commercial jet, generally speaking there will be far fewer people on board. Private flights are therefore considerably less efficient, and the personal carbon footprint of passengers who choose to travel this way is much higher.
Some estimates say private jets produce 10 times the amount of carbon per passenger, although calculations clearly vary depending on the make and model of aircraft being compared, the length of journey and the number of passengers per flight.
According to the
US Energy Information Administration, jet fuel produces 9.57kg of CO2 per gallon burnt. Let’s take an example flight – a Boeing 737, one of the world’s most popular commercial jets, will burn somewhere in the region of 750 gallons an hour. Over the course of a three-hour flight, it will therefore burn 2,250 gallons of fuel, producing 21,533kg of CO2. Depending on the model, the plane can hold around 200 passengers, making the amount of CO2 produced per passenger around 108kg if we assume a fairly full flight.
Take the same idea, but imagine we’re going by private jet. The Cessna Citation XLS is one of the most popular models on the market. It burns around 210 gallons of fuel per hour, producing around 6,030kg of CO2 in a three-hour flight. Typically the jet is configured to seat between six and eight passengers; if there were seven on board, the average amount of CO2 per person would be 860kg.
