With reference to your editorial ‘Eastern promise a boon for UK aerospace’ (Comment 12 December, 2005), I am sad there is no reference to the damage all this additional flying, which burns a lot of kerosene/hydrocarbon, will do to the upper atmosphere.
Good, responsible engineering requires that before any more flying is contemplated, completely new technology should be initiated, such as the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier/fuel.
Otherwise, for the benefit of the still relative few who fly, all mankind will suffer.
In that sense this ‘democratic’ technology is grossly different from the others that you mention, in that flying people around the world takes more energy, relatively, than anything else we do.
J Gray
Warwickshire
Massive new Coventry campus targets 60GWh battery output
Where will all the raw materials come from for the manufacturing process? How will they be transported to the factory and what is going to be done with the various scrap and residues?