Aviation and the Environment

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.

BAA piles on pressure over third Heathrow runway

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:36:53 +0000

At one point it looked as if the war was won over the proposed third Heathrow runway. The UK Labour government was onside and supporters were cautiously confident. But one way or another the whole debate is up for grabs again - particularly since the Conservatives took everyone by surprise and said they won't support it if they get in. So today BAA, through the Future Heathrow grouping, turned up the pressure with the backing of 100 entities of various sorts, but overwhelmingly from the business community, and in large part from the financially muscular end of the sector.

At time of writing it has to be said that this Monday press release wasn't actually getting a lot of traction - but the names are actually pretty impressive and will certainly give the Conservatives food for thought.

Air New Zealand and US FAA in ATM demo today

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:07:28 +0000

Assuming all goes well, Air New Zealand and the US FAA will today complete an interesting demonstration of optimised ATM and flight-operational techniques on a flight from Auckland to Los Angeles. The FAA is making a big deal of it - administrator Bobby Sturgell is expected to turn up personally to watch the arrival.

Seems that at long last ATM is getting the prominence it needs as an environmental tool. ANZ press release below. Couple of newspaper stories here and here.

Solazyme claim algae-jetfuel first

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:43:12 +0000

Student journalists learn early on that the word 'first' is a dangerous one to throw about casually, but anyway...Solazyme of San Francisco is claiming "to have produced the world's first microbial-derived jet fuel". The fuel is derived from algae and Solazyme says it passes the ASTM D1655 standard for aviation turbine fuel.

I don't know them personally, but they do seem to have had some success in raising reasonably serious money, and at least some biofuel watchers are suggesting they're closer to producing something usable on an industrial scale than anyone else. More opinions and info welcome.

IATA, CANSO and Eurocontrol get serious about ATM gains

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:36:01 +0000

Rather out of the blue, IATA, CANSO and Eurocontrol have come out with a heavyweight document that seriously sets about realising environmental gains by optimised air traffic management. It's a "five-point plan" that essentially lays out the things that will definitely have to be done in order to get the benefits that are generally accepted to be achievable.

We can only hope it's followed up with action. ATM - in both the US and Europe in fact - is the one bright hope for emissions reduction in the forseeable future.

British Airways and Rolls-Royce finally unveil alternative fuel programme

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:57:42 +0000

British Airways and Rolls-Royce have finally gone public on a programme to investigate alternative fuels that has been much rumoured for the last few months. This one's important - Rolls-Royce in particular has been scathing of any activity related to non-sustainable biofuels.

Last week I reported this on our premium news service Air Transport Intelligence: Director engineering and technology, Colin Smith, told a pre-Farnborough airshow briefing today: "We are not willing to work on biofuels that are not sustainable. That has been unpopular sometimes - we refused to do one demonstration because of that.

"We need to create a biofuel from biomass that does not compete with foodstuffs. It is just barking mad to compete with foodstuffs."

He adds that the company will also only work on projects aimed at yielding a "drop-in" fuel that could be used as a direct replacement in existing engines. "And they also must not absorb water," he adds.

Smith says: "Most of the current biofuels are just plain daft from an aerospace point of view. They only work down to about -5ºC."

He notes that kerosene has numerous desirable properties and is not easy to replace, but says: "In a few more years you will be able to manipulate any biomass for this purpose. We will work on any biofuel if it is sustainable."

The full text of the BA/RR announcement is below.