I just wonder how long it will take to build (5 to 10 years?), and what the price and availability of oil will be then.

Tar/oil sand/shale whatever: it’s hard work to extract and process, but it’s profitable at $100/barrel and there’s chuffing loads of it.

we’re not going to run out anytime soon.

It will be more expensive to extract and refine those deposits, and can you create avgas from such poor qualty materials? There is an aviation crunch coming, whether we choose to accept the fact or not.

There is an aviation crunch coming, whether we choose to accept the fact or not.

Agreed. Fuel costs is nigh on bankrupting most airlines at the moment.

ohnohesback – I struggle with some of your arguments in this thread. You suggest you are in the south-east, and that people don’t want more planes or increases to Heathrow, but have you looked at the needs of the communities local to Heathrow such as Hounslow? The number of people employed either directly by the airlines, the airport or supporting companies is phenomenal, and you probably won’t find their MPs voting against the idea unlike the ones in Putney/Richmond where it ‘might’ spoil their after electorate’s afternoon in the garden sipping G&Ts.

The UK does need effective air travel with increased volumes, and currently extensions to the capacity at Heathrow or Gatwick are the two best options to ensure people can get in and out of the UK, and that the government receives a considerable amount of income in taxes. Luton could work as a physical location, but would need considerable investment to surrounding infrastructure, and to the airport itself to offer major volume increases; Stansted is not particularly easy for most people to get to based on populace (not all, I realise) and a Thames Estuary solution is pie-in-the-sky fantasy. No one would be able to get to it given they would have to go via central London, which already has transport issues. Specifically, have you tried taking luggage/bicycles etc on the train or tube systems when it’s busy?

If you take a flight into London and come in over Kent/Sussex or Essex, would you really say it is overcrowded with roads and other aeroplanes? The noise output per plane has dropped considerably in the last 15 years, and their efficiency has increased too, making them better, if not great for the environment. However, people need and want to move around and to restrict travel based on current levels seems a little backward.

Trains could reduce some of the need for regional air transport, but they need to find improved ways to connect areas of the country allowing people to miss out major radial hubs such as London, and building new rail lines doesn’t seem as likely as increases to the road network.

The world has become considerably ‘smaller’ in the last 60 years through air transport, and changing people’s mindsets back to only living and working in one area, and trading their products and services in areas they can easily reach is not going to happen.

The world has become considerably ‘smaller’ in the last 60 years through air transport, and changing people’s mindsets back to only living and working in one area, and trading their products and services in areas they can easily reach is not going to happen.

It’s going to have to happen, sooner or later, the way things are going our current transport choices are too cheap and too easy. I suppose the driver will be cost and capacity this will start with freight and food, but it won’t be long before people are restricted too. None of what we’re doing at the moment is sustainable financially, environmentally or socially. It’s time we faced up to this.

What Peyote said. Plus the UK will be importing increasing ammounts of crude at world prices (driven by new demand in the East) with a declining economy struggling to pay for it.

None of what we’re doing at the moment is sustainable financially, environmentally or socially. It’s time we faced up to this.

None of what we’re doing with regard to what, exactly?
There are thousands of engineers in this world working toward environmentally sound alternatives to all sorts of things. Battery development is coming on leaps and bounds, with increasing energy densities possible – we already have light recreational aircraft that are all electric. Oil scarcity will not be the death of aircraft.

None of what we’re doing with regard to what, exactly?

The whole transport system by which we live our lives, from local motorised journeys (50% of which are under 5 miles, 30% under 3!!!), all the way to shipping strawberries from Ghana so that we can have Eton mess for pudding in February!

Cheap flights, cheap fuel, cheap parking, cheap foreign imported goods, cheap holidays in far flung places. It’s all completely unsustainable and founded on a temporary capital ideal. Sooner or later the third world will catch up with the first world and we’ll be stuffed because we can’t get away with cheap labour and cheap natural resources anymore (assuming any form of energy crisis doesn’t hit before that tipping point). It makes more sense to start to think now about getting as much as we can locally, with minimal transport involved.

Edited to add – I suppose the engineers could sort out some of the problems we face, but surely a simpler solution is to be found by doing things differently? Maybe I just don’t have enough faith in human ingenuity and technology to sort out the problems!

No bad thing if you believe that air travel is a major contributor to AGW[b]CC[/b]