I imagine people making that claim accept air travel as useful and “AI”, really, all datacenters as not useful.
I’ve had people tell me oh, air travel is more efficient per mile that road travel.
But this ignores that people wouldn’t drive thousands of miles if it was not as easy as booking a flight.
Yes they do. A big part of it is their size / capacity. Per passenger or per kg cargo they’re pretty efficient, but that doesn’t change the fact that they burn ~280,000 liters on a typical (Washington D.C. to Frankfurt) Atlantic crossing round trip.
Yes, overstated - it’s a two way Atlantic crossing. And if you consider Newfoundland to Ireland to be “an Atlantic crossing” that certainly uses less, and it’s rounded up a bit - though with unfavorable wind conditions it can exceed 300,000 liters.
Also, be careful what you believe when you ask AI a question - what’s wrong with this answer? "A Boeing 747 burns roughly 18,000 to 24,000 gallons of fuel for the Miami to Frankfurt flight, which is about 36,000 to 50,000 liters. "
I mean an Atlantic round trip fully laden, yah but that’s just even economical compared to private jet travel, which completely defeats the purpose of the shock value number
Everything about private jet travel is shock value inefficient if you compare it to “normal people” CO2 emissions.
A friend won a $14M lottery payout, he didn’t go for planes but he liked boats, so it’s to be expected that he buys a couple of boats. The boats themselves weren’t so impressive maybe twice the size of my Uncle’s boat, what was impressive was going out for a day-trip fishing with him… and burning 800 gallons of fuel. Sure, we went a little farther than my Uncle’s boat could go in a day just because the lotto win boat is faster, but a day fishing pretty similar fish with my uncle? 10-20 gallons of gas if we’re trolling (which we weren’t in lotto win boat), 3-5 gallons if we just run around and anchor and chum like we normally do.
Your article doesn’t even claim that. Do you have any idea just how carbon intensive a flight is?
I imagine people making that claim accept air travel as useful and “AI”, really, all datacenters as not useful. I’ve had people tell me oh, air travel is more efficient per mile that road travel. But this ignores that people wouldn’t drive thousands of miles if it was not as easy as booking a flight.
300,000 liters of jet fuel to send one 747 across the Atlantic Ocean - one time.
For modern planes 70 - 90k liter… it’s bad enough, no need to exaggerate
As of July 2025, approximately 424 Boeing 747 aircraft are in active airline service
…and I take it they burn three hundred thousand litres to run the Atlantic as well?
Yes they do. A big part of it is their size / capacity. Per passenger or per kg cargo they’re pretty efficient, but that doesn’t change the fact that they burn ~280,000 liters on a typical (Washington D.C. to Frankfurt) Atlantic crossing round trip.
Yes, overstated - it’s a two way Atlantic crossing. And if you consider Newfoundland to Ireland to be “an Atlantic crossing” that certainly uses less, and it’s rounded up a bit - though with unfavorable wind conditions it can exceed 300,000 liters.
Also, be careful what you believe when you ask AI a question - what’s wrong with this answer? "A Boeing 747 burns roughly 18,000 to 24,000 gallons of fuel for the Miami to Frankfurt flight, which is about 36,000 to 50,000 liters. "
I mean an Atlantic round trip fully laden, yah but that’s just even economical compared to private jet travel, which completely defeats the purpose of the shock value number
Everything about private jet travel is shock value inefficient if you compare it to “normal people” CO2 emissions.
A friend won a $14M lottery payout, he didn’t go for planes but he liked boats, so it’s to be expected that he buys a couple of boats. The boats themselves weren’t so impressive maybe twice the size of my Uncle’s boat, what was impressive was going out for a day-trip fishing with him… and burning 800 gallons of fuel. Sure, we went a little farther than my Uncle’s boat could go in a day just because the lotto win boat is faster, but a day fishing pretty similar fish with my uncle? 10-20 gallons of gas if we’re trolling (which we weren’t in lotto win boat), 3-5 gallons if we just run around and anchor and chum like we normally do.
Or a LLM query?