Aviation and the Environment

ATA and AIA put markers down for Obama administration

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:08:34 +0000

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.

Aerospace Industries Association launches environment page

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:06:17 +0000

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.

New Zealand agonises over effect of The Big OE

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:05:17 +0000

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.

Everything you wanted to know about particulate emissions

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:34:21 +0000

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.

'Green' hangar arises in California

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:20:04 +0000

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.

Heathrow and high-speed rail pt 6 (the Zac Goldsmith theory)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:02:12 +0000

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.

Heathrow and high-speed rail pt 5 - the international experience

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:37:35 +0000

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.

Heathrow and high-speed rail pt 4

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:18:51 +0000

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."

Heathrow and high-speed rail pt 3

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:45:14 +0000

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.

Heathrow and high-speed rail pt 2

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:23:13 +0000

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

Integrating High Speed Rail with Heathrow: BAA conference

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:47:50 +0000

I'm just back from a small but perfectly formed conference in London organised by BAA and designed to help them, and anyone else, understand how Heathrow and the national rail system should be linked - or not. With particular emphasis on the case for high-speed rail. BAA plans to come out with its own proposals in summer 2009.

All of a sudden this has become a big deal after the UK opposition Conservative party announced, to the astonishment of just about everyone, that they would not go ahead with building the third Heathrow runway and would instead invest in high-speed rail. Their leader David Cameron personally put his name to this idea. As the Conservatives have at least an evens chance of being the next government, this is not a trivial matter.

At the conference, where there are something like 100 attendees from business, academia, consultancies etc, there is general bafflement at what the Conservatives are doing and where they sourced their supporting data.

It's kicked off by chairman Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics. Drily noting that Heathrow is "a national treasure" - a very British, and decidedly two-edged description - he says: "High speed rail could make Heathrow easier to access and greener but, and there is a paradox here, easier to expand."

Green Regional Aircraft gets underway in Italy

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:06:48 +0000

Today and tomorrow the participants in Europe's Green Regional Aircraft (GRA) programme are in Caserta, Italy to get the technical activity underway. Briefly, GRA is one of the six strands of the all-important Clean Sky research programme. That in turn is the pan-European research effort aimed at helping industry achieve the continent's environmental targets in aviation. GRA accounts for €174 million of Clean Sky's €1.6 billion over seven years.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group puts critics on back foot

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:42:20 +0000

Well I suppose the headline above is pretty well guaranteed to spark the critics into action, but the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group launched by Boeing, Honeywell, a group of ten airlines, and two environmental groups has had a remarkably neutral reception. In the tinderbox of the aviation environmental debate that's quite a success.

Another noteworthy feature of this project is that it was kept quiet until launch - also quite a feat in the leaky aviation world. The two points may not be unconnected. Obviously the new group now has to deliver, but in the short term it's difficult to argue with its aims, and opponents may just be drawing breath.

Meanwhile, I've scoured the blogosphere and just about nobody has a rude word to say about it - for now. This blog is from Liz Barratt-Brown at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) which is one of the partners in the group - but it's an interesting viewpoint all the same.

British Conservatives really do plan to drop 3rd Heathrow runway

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:46:48 +0000

It's the annual conference of the Conservative Party in the UK. Regardless of how thrilling or otherwise you may find this, the fact is that they are very publicly committing to actions that stand an excellent choice of forming the manifesto of the next national government.

And a huge commitment they made today was to confirm beyond any doubt that they do not intend to go ahead with approving a third London Heathrow runway. That came from shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers. Their leader David Cameron said as much before, and so did London's Conservative mayor Boris Johnson (although he has his own unique wrinkle on the argument). Now there's no going back.

They'll be spending the money on high-speed rail from major northern cities and London instead.

The declaration has had predictably but decidedly mixed receptions as reported here in The Guardian and here by the BBC. This of course is not a debate that lends itself to neat conclusions - but the "false choice" between air and rail argument does seem relevant.

In the reasonably plausible event of the next election ending with a Conservative victory but a 'hung' parliament, the Tories could count on the Liberal Democrats for support on this issue.

TNT chief: aviation "in denial" about long-term future

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:50:09 +0000

Peter Bakker, who I've not met, is CEO of the integrated freight company TNT, and a very interesting man. He's close enough to aviation to know a great deal about it, but distant enough not to be too much in love with it. And he's just said something fairly remarkable.

TNT operates or controls more than 40 aircraft worldwide under the TNT Airways brand. Most of them are short/medium-haul frieghters for express deliveries. But the airline also has a couple of Boeing 747-400ERFs for long-range services - notably Europe-China.

Business is good and the airline needs more long-haul aircraft, but Bakker says TNT has told Boeing he won't be acquiring more 747s.

My colleague Brendan Sobie talked to him at the Cargo Facts symposium in Miami about why - read below why Bakker thinks what he thinks.