Plus, the world is awash in oil for the next century or two.

@JohnK Yes and no. There will be a point (some sources say in the next 20 years) where the cost of mining oil is higher than any reasonable selling price. Disregarding that, emission legislation will prevent burning of fossil fuels way before we 'run out'. Most European countries are banning the sale of fossil fuels cars by 2040, with some, such as Norway implementing this as soon as 2020! Aviation will surely be next...

@Cloud There's more untapped fuel in the ground than we have mined in human history. For example, the United States has a policy in place that generally (though not always), we don't harvest our own fuel, as in the event of world war or collapse of the oil industry, we can mine our own for another hundred plus years. It's incredibly easy to swap cars to renewable energy compared to aircraft. The energy expenditure to fly is many multiples of the energy expenditure to roll across the ground. I can tell you that the aerospace industry has no plans to do a "full switch" anytime soon.

@Matt Well if the government impose it, the aerospace industry won't have a choice.

"The energy expenditure to fly is many multiples of the energy expenditure to roll across the ground." Beg to differ, but light aircraft designed for efficiency easily exceed fuel economy (passenger distance per fuel) of cars of similar capacity, while operating at 50% higher speeds.

Just the US has shale reserves, that were considered untouchable 15 years ago but are are cheap to extract today, good for a few hundred years, Canada has umpteen trillion barrels in the oil sands, another hundred years worth. Siberia's barely been scratched. The world is not running out of economical fossil fuels any time soon.

That's if the EU wants to commit economic suicide. The bans are insane. Actions of a religious cult.

@ZeissIkon In a Toyota Corolla: 42mpg * 5 people = 210pmpg regular fuel. An incredibly fuel efficient A330-200 gets 99pmpg of Jet-A fuel (which is 70% more expensive where I am.) Commercial aircraft have a good "average" pmpg ratio because they are built specifically to be fuel efficient in an industry with razor thin profit margins. If you compare top of the line to top of the line, it's like comparing apples to watermelons...and don't even get me started on how fuel efficient trains are!

Possibly related - battery tech will need to be 18.5x denser than the current top of the line lithium-ion batteries to match performance of liquid fuel. aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/45040/…

@matt and a 1958 Cessna 182 burned 11.9 gph at 135 kt true (appr. 150 mph), with up to 6 passengers. (150/11.9)*6 = 75.6, and that's not an optimized design and 60 years old.

@ZeissIkon GA aircraft were created to be fuel efficient to reduce cost of ownership, and 100LL was not always so easy to get as it is now. A P-51 Mustang got about 4.2mpg! You can't cherrypick data - you have to take into account the entire spectrum of aircraft. I'm inspired to write a new question based off of this though.

@JohnK 'The bans are insane'... some people think heavily polluting the planet and causing it irreversible damage (as well as ourselves) is pretty 'insane'. All so morons can feel big driving around in gas guzzlers. You'll be the one complaining if you get lung cancer :)

@Cloud As long as kerosine isn't even taxed, it's going to take a long time before the aerospace industry has to turn away from oil.

What is insane is declaring a trace gas that is essential for life on earth, where everything dies if it drops too low, as a pollutant. It's a cult, morphed into a racket. Anyway... this isn't the place...

@Cloud, "if the government impose it", they won't have a choice but to resign. You can't legislate physics. Government intervention can make sense only if there is a solution, even if less efficient, to entice to use it. But as it stands, there is no viable alternative yet, at least for airline-sized aircraft (which is almost all that matters).

@JohnK Can you provide me sources for this? What about the Chinese smog? That isn't pollution?

@JohnK By the way I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm genuinely interested in learning. I thought that vehicle emissions were the true downfall of humanity and something that is going to doom us all. If you can prove to me that this isn't the case, I'd be much happier! :)

@Cloud You have to differentiate between pollution - smog - and the climate cult. None of us want dirty air. But in the West dirty air really isn't much a a problem anymore, thanks to the original environmentalists combined with an affluent middle class demanding something be done about real dirty air. China's a different problem and as a Police State it just does what it wants. All of the worst environmental devastation of the 20 century was in the Communist bloc.

Meanwhile, the environmental movement has moved on to CO2 and has managed to create the perception that a trace gas that is the foundation of life on earth is a pollutant that will cause a thermal runaway of earth in a century, based on a shabby scientific theory with flimsy evidence that has already been falsified. Ask yourself; what does it say about a scientific movement who's response to skepticism - you know, the foundation of science itself - by advocates of the cult is bully.

To bully skeptical scientists to intimidate them to shut up. Read the emails leaked from HADCRUT (U of East Anglia climate unit) in the late 2000s by the climate scientists that are the "roots of the tree" so to speak. They are corrupt. They talk about cooking data, brag about getting skeptical scientists dumped from journals. They are bullies. How is that science?

Once you really delve into the issue, as opposed to just absorbing the constant propaganda washing over you, and the light goes off, you will get mad. You will get pissed at the trillions of dollars being wasted on a racket that could be better spent on things like fresh water.