The US Air Transport Association (ATA) has fired its first shot across the Obama administration's bows as it continues its fight to prevent emissions trading, or other market-based tools, in the USA. ATA president and CEO James C May has written this for the National Journal's transportation expert blog.

The next day he was followed by his equivalent at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Marion Blakey, on a related tack. Not a coincidence, I think it can be assumed.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the highly influential body that represents US manufacturers, has created an environment page on its website. It's called, not unreasonably I suppose, "Aviation and the Environment".

It has a page of FAQs, one of which reads as follows:

Why have I heard more about this issue in the last couple of years?
In some areas, aviation has been targeted by environmental advocates. These individuals have been vocal in their criticism from time to time and made some headlines. While well intentioned, their argument stems from a lack of information of aviation's history of environmental performance and plans for even more advances in the future.

So that's told them!

I'm not personally sure that it's the intellectual way forward though.

I haven't been to New Zealand and chances are you haven't either. But New Zealanders go to a lot of places - notably the UK - frequently a long way away, and usually by air. And those people who do go to NZ also generally fly a long way to get there. The Kiwis, who I mentally stereotype as the Scandinavians of the South, have the good grace to worry about what all this flying is doing carbon-wise.

View imageYou know, soot and stuff like that. The sort of thing that is an issue at and around airports. It hasn't been quite as thoroughly researched during a period when the focus has been on less visible and more damaging things like NOX and CO2. But it's a problem - and for airport planners and their regulators, local air quality is becoming a very big deal - just ask everyone concerned with the Heathrow expansion debate.

Anyway, you can now arm yourself with the finest stats available in the field courtesy of the US Transportation Research Board's Airport Cooperative Research Program. They've just published the results of a heavyweight study of the phenonemon using several real aircraft with engines covering about 70% of the US fleet. Landmark stuff.

Here's a flavour of it, but there's much, much more...

The following conclusions were drawn when emissions were sampled at the exhaust nozzle:

- The measured PM parameters for each engine type (i.e., JT8D, CFM56, CF6, RB211, etc.)

are unique. For example, in the case of the RB211, JT8D, and PW4158, the mass-based

emission indices measured as a function of fuel flow ranged from 0.04 to 0.70, <0.01 to 0.32,

and <0.01 to 0.18 g/kg-fuel respectively.

- The measured PM parameters for engine subtypes are also unique. For example, for the

CFM56-3B versus -7B engines, the ratio of their mass-based emission indices at takeoff was

found to be 4:1 (-3B:-7B).

- Credible inventories based on nozzle emission rates will require engine-specific data like

that measured in these studies.

- Black carbon PM (i.e., non-volatile particles) constitutes more than 80% of the mass of PM

emissions at all thrust conditions. At takeoff thrusts, more than 95% of the total PM mass

is black carbon PM.

Interesting goings-on in Los Angeles where Shangri-La Construction has been showing off the first example of the type of 'green' hangar that it hopes to sell to aviation operators - starting with local business aviation FBO Maguire Aviation.

The demonstration unit is at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, and Maguire is in talks to commission the same sort of thing for its operation at Van Nuys Airport where it is the major tenant.

We're talking, for example, solar panels to power lighting and electrical vehicles.

Press release here. And explanatory movie below.

 

A few speakers rely heavily on their data slides which I'll try to update when they're released over the next week or so. One of those is Nikolas Hill, a senior consultant with AEA, but he is also the one speaker to speculate - in response to a question - about where the UK Conservatives got their figures. Notably the one that says high-speed rail is 70X cleaner than air travel.

One of the day's most interesting speakers is not actually on the agenda, but Michel Leboeuf of the Systra consultancy arm of French rail operator SNCF gets plenty of attention when he speaks from the floor.

Michael Hayes, managing consultant for Atkins Transport Planning, puts out the question: "Is Heathrow important to the business case for high-speed rail?" And he continues: "If you are going to build this very expensive piece of kit, which markets do you want to serve?"

He points out the complexities of trying to serve the markets for Birmingham and also for Liverpool further north, and he suggests that only Scottish traffic would experience a "significant" shift from air to rail. It might lead, he suggests, to a solution with better conventional long-distance rail services with "occasional" high-speed trains on the longer routes.

"This comes across as saying there is not case for high-speed rail," he frets. "I think there is a case, but it has got to be part of a bigger solution."

Prof Robert Cochrane of Imperial College London, who was heavily involved in the the landmark Eddington study of UK transportation, also bemoans the inadequate data - particularly on non-aviation travel, and especially the roads.

Next up is Stuart Condie, BAA planning services director and the man whose show it is.