The New York Times recently published an article with a title that may have made the cover of an exuberant 1960s issue of Popular Mechanics, “Could Air Someday Power Your Flight? Airlines Are Betting on It.”

It was accompanied by the utopian graphic shown below of a plane emitting flowers.

Image Credit: The New York Times

The solutions to decarbonize air travel in this article, “including hydrogen-powered aircraft, fully electric planes and synthetic jet fuel made from carbon extracted from the atmosphere” have either limited potential or are grossly unrealistic.

As of now, aviation only accounts for about 2% of CO2 emissions. But that is only because very few people on Earth can afford to fly. Still, the number of planes in the air is expected to increase from 28,000 to 38,000 in the next ten years.

Flying is awesome. But flying may need to be reserved for long distances and routes over water.  France is banning short-haul domestic flights in favor of train travel.

However, short-distance flying with electric planes is realistic and indispensable for island nations.

For everyone else, there is high-speed electric rail, including trains using magnetic levitation. They are fast, leave from downtown, make stops easily, and are much more comfortable than flying.

That technology has been refined to a level of perfection. It is real technology for a real planet.