Slashdot Mirror
FAA Plans to Clean Up the Skies
coondoggie writes "On top of its recently announced plan to reduce flight delays, Federal Aviation Administration officials today launched what they hope will be pan U.S. and European Union joint action plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft. Specifically the group announced the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions or AIRE — the first large-scale environmental plan aimed at uniting aviation players from both sides of the Atlantic."
As American pilots say, "To AIRE is human, to drink, de wine!"
Forget about the ozone - I want more CO2. I mean the plants really love that stuff and I like my plants to be healtthy.
Bobo Mahoney
Years of the Bush administration have left me feeling so grateful when I seem a government agency doing something in the public interest.
What they're proposing makes a lot of sense and can save a lot of CO2. Unfortunately, if they're serious, it will mean that all planes will be fully loaded before they take off, no more half-empty planes. On the up-side, it will save the airlines lots of money, reduce noise, speed gate-to-gate times and make our air cleaner. Good news.
Best regards.
What about the lead thats in General Aviation Fuel? Are they doing anything to reduce that?
They could force anal probes on the passengers claiming that it is necessary to fight terrorism.
Nobody would take a plane anymore and the skies would be clear.... and secure!
but why put extra pressure on a crumbling industry right now? Another year or two isn't going to make much of a difference in the scheme of the environment. The waste per passenger must be lower than that of driving a car (speculation). Even if planes were the most horrible polluters, now doesn't seem like the time?
is getting insane. With China the new carbon dioxide emissions leader we need to focus on finding actual new sources of energy. You know, so China will have some economic incentive to stop polluting so much, not that it would hurt for the USA to cut its emissions drastically as well.
We need to face facts: Assuming the global climate is as fragile as all of the chicken littles claim, the US and Europe ceasing all greenhouse emissions right now would do nothing to save us from our gradual slide into superhurricane seasons and worldwide desert conditions, simply because India and China are still developing and couldn't give two shits about all of our initiatives if any cost them money.
I'm still waiting on a testable model (no, not a replica of the globe, trolls) before I jump on this "global warming is both horrible and human-mediated" that so many people seem to have blindly latched onto, drawing absurd conclusions after equating correlation with causation and screaming as shrilly as the most terrifying of harpies when someone expresses so much as a single iota of skepticism at their grand new movement.
My point is this: Cutting our planes' emissions will do nothing but place further financial strains on us, leading to a relative inability to compete with other countries less concerned about the illusory monster of global warming. In addition to this, it will do nothing to make a marked decrease in our own production of carbon dioxide and other gases.
This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down.
It's actually really surprising how much airlines currently *don't* do to optimize fuel costs. Aircraft get vastly different fuel economies at different altitudes and speeds, and there is quite a lot of room for optimization of these in conjunction with winds aloft for long flights. There's not only a good environmental impact, but quite a bit of savings for the airline.
Both my brothers are senior captains for well-known airlines, so this is a common talking point at the holiday dinner table. I got screwed with the colorblindness...wish I made as much per hour.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Come to think of it, what would happen to planes when our fossil fuels start to run out? I wonder what kind of altenative energy source could be used to run those "big" machines.
Does this mean that Travolta and Algore get to own Hybrid jets? Or are they going to get special air pooling fast lanes?? :) We need to shrink our carbon footprint so they can have their huge one. Preach to me, then bebop around the country in your private planes??? sheesh..
I guess all they needed was an acronymn and something that could build enough red tape to make it more profitable for the bureacrats.
Good for you. Double the cost of jet fuel while you're at it, please? Then we can blame anything that moves for the sluggish world wide economy when you are all done hugging trees.
Federal Aviation Administration officials today launched what they hope will be pan U.S. and European Union joint action plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft. Specifically the group announced the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions or AIRE
Additionally, the FAA announced that their agency would be renamed the 'American Institute for Regulation of Pilot Licensing and Aeronautical Navigation and Engineering' (AIRPLANE) to satisfy new federal requirements for cutesy acronyms.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
But will it prepare us for global cooling?
It's great that they're looking at ways to increase efficiency of current aircraft, but the question remains: how can we keep increasing our use of air travel without putting out more greenhouse gases. You hear people talking about restrictions on air travel in the future, and I can't understand why we can't find technological solutions.
For example, is anybody doing research on biofuels for turbines? I've heard of the USAF looking into it for greater energy security, but is it a reasonable proposal?
Could we eventually have a prop-powered commercial plane, even one that was electrically powered? Check out the Tu-95 Bear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 as an example; it's a much more blue sky proposal, but within the realm of possibility.
The UK government has a site for calculating your carbon emissions.
It is rather funny for people outside the UK because some of the questions are very stereotypical:
- "How much water do you use in a kettle if you only want one cup of tea"
- "How large is the engine size of your car... (Large = 2 litres or more)"
And others are so trivial, you have to wonder why they are included:
- "Do you own a digital radio?"
- "Do you own an external hard disk, scanner, modem/router, other?"
Transport/heating emissions are *HUGE* compared to that of a scanner or consumer router.
And regarding the options for which computer facilities you use in your house, the maximum number of options is FAR too small for Slashdot users. Prefixing "router" with "a " is unheard of for slashdot users, it should be "Which router?".
And they use imperial units! I wonder where they copied this calculator from...
There has been literally decades of research, and research is ongoing. There's no single good answer. High compression piston aircraft engines may be able to run on fuels with other additives, but all the reformulations discovered so far are much more toxic than the current 100LL formulation.
Some of the technical solutions include shipping 100LL without the lead (which mid-compression engines can probably run OK), electronic ignition systems, and diesel (jet fuel) retrofit with new engines. Whole new, small aircraft, particularly from Diamond Aircraft, run on Jet-A. The lead additive (TEL) is getting more expensive, so price is encouraging some movement in this direction anyway, particularly outside the U.S.
It's important to keep some perspective here, though. The amount of lead released into the atmosphere by piston aircraft engines is incredibly miniscule, and it's not released in the ways automobiles did (i.e. near the ground, in lung-concentrated ways). There are about 5,000 public airports in the U.S., and the vast majority of those have very limited numbers of aircraft operating on the ground for very brief periods of time. So unless you live on a taxiway at a busy small aircraft airport, and breathe deeply for some years, you're OK.
There are many, many places where environmental protection money would be more wisely spent. The simple act of burning coal, for example, is incredibly, vastly more dangerous than anything the entire piston aircraft engine fleet could do. That said, it would probably make sense for the government to give the engine industry (mainly Lycoming and Continental) a bit of a nudge, telling them to find any solution they wish to stop producing new aircraft engines that run only on leaded fuels by a date certain (say, 10 years out). In all probability they can recertify with a combination of electronic ignition and the same 100LL formulation but without TEL, and they can do that relatively inexpensively. If the feds made every aircraft owner who replaced their engines eligible for fuel tax rebates for a period of, say, 5 years from date of installation, that'd probably get the job done to get the fleet converted. But nobody is in a rush to do this because nobody at the EPA sees a public health problem here.
This still isn't the issue that should be discussed. Most greenhouse gas emissions (that can be prevented to continue our society running in a way similiar to how its running how) come from poor building design. Architecture, engineering and software design is what needs to be looked at, not car's which contribute only about 1/3rd the damage that building, living in and operating buildings add to the factor.
We need to use smart and effective 'green' design. And no, I don't mean we should be living in squalor cabins with grass on our roofs--beautiful, effective and low cost green architecture is available...if the industry will ever be embraced!
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
So, does this mean they'll stop that secret military program that sprays chemtrails all day long, to cut global warming by radiating sunlight back into space? Oooops. Wasn't supposed to admit that. Men in black ... coming to door .. must ...stop them! Help me, Spock! Need more ... aluminum foil! Khaaaaaaaan!!
Any time there's a pan US-EU anything it usually pans out to mean that european businesses have to fork over any trade secrets, information relating to the privacy of passengers/customers and promise to give the american companies special deals/bonuses/kickback programs in the EU area. Non-compliance is seen as being "obstructionist", "old Europe" and probably harbouring terrorists.
Free trade is great. So great that the only ones not subject to it are american companies whenever they are to compete in an international market. Watch for this to be named with some sort of cute "Save the puppies and clean up the air treaty" orwellian title
I recommend that no short or medium term plans to switch long-haul flights to battery-powered engines.
Now, where do I send my consultancy bill?
AT&ROFLMAO
Full throttle all the way!
:-) Yeah, I'm cool with the wing being near vertical.
Arrive high and fast. Lose the altitude and speed with that side slip maneuver the glider pilots use.
How do you like Mach 3 without any greenhouse gas emmisions?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
I'm sure Big Oil killed it.
... till after we block out the sun with planes spewing black smog?
oh wait!
From an article on the BBC News site: "A draft United Nations report published in April says that aviation accounts for 2% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6223834.stm. So I think one can conclude that aircraft emissions are irrelevant compared to other emission sources. I think the article shows the airlines' real intent: to subvert strict noise regulations by tagging on to the Climate Change hype and then suggesting that CO2 reduction is more important than noise reduction.
Yes, I do live close to an airport.
This is the exact opposite of Dyson, who is so arrogant that he assumes that he can completely master something as large as climate modelling and then reject it, without in fact knowing much about it at all.
Pining for the fjords
If they just improved their flight scheduling infosystems to eliminate wasteful delays and wasteful rushing to catch up, they'd burn a lot less fuel per mile traveled.
How many times have we arrived above an airport, just to fly in circles until the terminal is ready to let us get to the gate? How long have we spent burning fuel on the runway, waiting for our turn to take off? All that extra fuel burned to go extra miles between our points.
And then the pilot tells us they'll pour on the speed to catch up to schedule, or get us ahead of schedule - so we have to wait longer for a gate to open when we arrive. That extra airspeed might improve their ontime arrivals/departures stats, but once out of the maximum efficiency range, that 4th power of wind resistance per area drag really multiplies the inefficiency out of the engine's peak efficiency RPM.
But if their logistics just mapped the arrivals/departures to the capacity of the airports, most of that waste would be unnecessary. I wouldn't be surprised to see >10% fuel efficiency gained right there, plus the extra efficiency from less refueling infrastructure.
--
make install -not war
Great post. If you want to hide your head in the sand, that is. Let me just shatter the myth that you're perpetuating in your first paragraph.
1. The US is by far the biggest polluter per capita.
Compare apples with apples, instead of of apples with oranges, by looking at per capita figures. The CIA World Factbook lists the population of China as 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.) and the population of the US as 301,139,947 (July 2007 est.).
You wouldn't compare the carbon dioxide emissions output of the US with that of a tiny nation like Bermuda, so play fair and use the most sensible measure to compare who's contributing how much.
A quick mental calculation will show you that, in carbon dioxide terms alone, the US produces four times as much domestically as China does.
2. China makes goods for the US, not the other way around.
All those goods that China makes that the US consumes (clothing, electronics, etc) have an associated cost in terms of carbon dioxide and other pollution. But, of course, the figures that you've latched onto don't attribute those to the country of consumption, only to the country of origin.
Put simply, when a Chinese factory makes something that an American will buy, it's at least partially (if not fully) pollution caused by the American consumer. So, a large chunk of the pollution caused by China, etc is due to the US (and other consumer nations) as well.
The US has five percent of the world's population. The US consumes roughly 25-30 percent of the world's goods, and hence is responsible for 25-30 percent of the pollution. To sustain everybody on the planet at the current US level of consumption would take five to six Earth's worth of resources and create a similar amount of pollution.
Now do you see why the US plays such a big part in this and should be taking positive, proactive steps to try to address the issues instead of trying to shift the blame to others?
As for your closing complaint that "This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down", well, I could not disagree more. The free market alone will never make the necessary steps to do what's necessary by itself, no matter what you might think. Want an example? Then just look at how car manufacturers fought tooth and nail against mandatory installation of seatbelts in cars. Same shit, different decade, that's all.
Please take your head out of the sand for a minute to think about it.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
because China effectively has two populations, those in the present and all those 'out there'
A large number of China's population will not become modernized within our lifetimes... but they apparently sure do well to keep the averages down when painting China's bad behaviour
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
They want to reduce air pollution from airplanes? How about not letting all the bankrupt airlines stay in business?
Why don't they just eliminate the 2 hours of idling on the runway before a 1 hour flight?
I realise we should do something about pollution from aeroplanes but as long as companies don't revise their policies there's little to be done.
A few months ago I took a plane which brought me to Brazil. I used to live in Milan, but it turned out that the cheapest option was flying to Lisbon, and from there taking a plane which was going back to Milan and then to São Paulo. Taking the same plane - and I mean not just same route but same flight number - in Milan skipping the Lisbon part was going to almost double the cost of the ticket. I even phoned the company telling them whether I could buy the ticket but then only check in in Milan but the confirmed it was impossible: I had to check in in Lisbon. So I had to buy a low-cost ticket to Lisbon, fly back to Milan after a few hours and from there reach São Paulo.
It turned out I flown twice the distance from Milan to Lisbon for nothing more than saving ticket money. It's against any logic that I should fly more (and pollute more) to pay less.
:(){
I wonder how much time and tax-payers' dollars were spent on coming up with the cute acronym. I'd bet that was the first order of business during the first few meetings.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
We got the EPA cleaning up the air. The FCC cleans up the airwaves. And now the FAA want to clean up the skies? What are they going to do? Prohibit R rated movies? No more sex in the bathrooms or leering at the stewardess? With all this, our air should be squeaky clean real soon.
What?
I don't recall the source, but somewhere I read that jet engines lose combustion efficiency rapidly with altitude -- the higher they fly the less of the fuel going through the engine actually gets burnt. As I recall, much more than half is just blown out into the atmosphere in various states of incomplete combustion at the highest altitudes.
It is my impression that even with much-touted fuel efficiency improvements the combustion rates of even engines not yet for sale are not higher than 45%.
My qestion is, can anyone say with any certainty what the effects of these raw hydro-carbon compounds at high altitude on, say the ozone layer for instance, might be?
Is anyone researching and publishing on this?
Maybe there should be a treaty to reduce older, high pollution aircraft from long distance flights.
Older planes, especially old turbojet airliners like the 707, have particularly loud and inefficient engines. Some can be re-engined with high-bypass turbofans for much quieter operation, much like the way the KC-135E (a 707 military air tanker modification) was up-engined to be the KC-135R, which is OK if you have good pilots that won't scrape the larger engine nacelles on a rough landing.
Of course, the airlines operating 707s and similar aircraft these days are the third world airlines, who got those airplanes for low, low prices after they'd exceeded 80%+ of their airframe lifespan. They probably don't maintain them that well, either, which increases the pollution. And if we restrict them to shorter hops, they'll never get into their most efficient flight regime...
But, hey, we get to use environmental regulation to screw over the third world, or we can exempt them from the regulations and gain nothing as they fly their air-jalopies all over the world. Yay!
And yes, I do have a degree in meteorology. My understanding is that global climate change is coming, whether or not it is caused by human activity, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can realistically be done to stop it. It's best to treat it as if it were a natural change and change with it. Besides, if a (worse case scenario according to IPCC) 20" increase in global sea level happens (over, what, 50 years), and you get caught by that, it will be like being passed by a slug. I will laugh uproariously at you as you stand in the rising water that you watched coming for forty five years and fret, oh, what am I going to do now? MOVE OR GET YOUR HOUSE LIFTED. Even tribal aboriginals will have that figured out without having to be told!
How can this guy be trusted to understand climatology if he can't tell the difference between dilution and delusion?
Please do your homework before this costs you your economies. My point in all of this is that CO2 does NOT cause climate change; I am not arguing that a change in the climate might be occurring. The climate on earth changes all the time and that global change is caused by the Sun (a new NASA finding). All life on the planet is carbon based, CO2 is part of our food chain, and it is not a pollutant. The biggest "green house gas" is water vapor. If climate change is caused by human activity then we would need to start eliminating life on the planet, yes this is absurd, so is the assertion that humans are causing climate change. It just is NOT the truth. Additional information http://www.inteliorg.com/co2_climate_change.html
yeah, it's what plants crave for
funny pics
"Note that I knew about this conveyor failing thing before Gore was even veep"
That was about the time the rest of us became aware of what a fat blowhard you are.
"conveyer" the idiot says. You really are an easily manipulated, mentally deficient cunt aren't you, buying into that garbage.
The US and Europe are LARGE contributors to the problem; combined, they are the largest source of greenhouse gases. China is in a much more difficult position, the USA is on easy street by comparison.
The Grasshopper and The Ant or how about The Little Red Hen?
Too many LAZY 1st world citizens are saying "No, not I" and/or acting like the grasshopper. The difference here being the adult-level rationalizations. Its like the grasshopper thinking winter will never come OR the pig saying that the wheat will not grow (then saying we don't have the technology to harvest it cost effectively, then its problems making flour, then its pigs 'are not willing to do' cooking jobs... If the pig in the story ate the bread, then the pig would downplay the laziness with more rationalization, like the Y2K skeptics did.)
Its no surprise that those taking the lazy do-nothing position fail to seriously look into global warming evidence.
Regulation is the job of government (and enforcement thereof.) The government reflects the incompetence of its own citizens (aka the public gets the government they deserve.) If your not doing anything to solve the problem you are part of it.
"leading to a relative inability to compete with other countries less concerned"
Ironically, your argument is the SAME argument for regulation within nations and for a global regulation. It applies locally. Nearly the same argument is used to stop poison in pet food or toys...(hint)
A nation can deal with the inequality in the market in ways local organizations can not.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Aircraft are not limited by how many people can fit in the seats, they are limited by how much weight they can carry.
Are you sure those "half full" aircraft are not loaded with extra cargo in the hold?
Still, all the flights back and forth between San Francisco and Boston would always remain booked solid.
Air traffic management Long-range Optimal Flow Tool (ALOFT). This air traffic management tool is being used daily to predict landing times, delays and optimal arrival time for aircraft arriving at Sydney, the national aviation hub. Air traffic controllers pass information to the pilot as they cross into Australian airspace, still some three to fours hours away from Sydney, and pilots then adjust their cruise speed to reduce delay at Sydney. This reduces fuel burn and emissions because aircraft burn less fuel at high altitude than they do at low altitudes.
0 7/June/086MV_2007.htm
http://www.ministers.dotars.gov.au/mv/releases/20
Triphenyl Phosphate (TPP) is what's being substituted in place of TCP these days for exactly the reasons you stated. TPP is slightly less effective, but much less toxic. Still, it's pretty nasty stuff.
Automotive gasolines in general aviation are utterly laughed at and incredibly discouraged, any pilot that thinks he's saving money is just spending it rebuilding his engine a couple hundred hours of flight later.
Bullcrap.
Those attitudes against mogas may have been the case a decade or longer ago, but the myths have been dispelled and the attitudes have definitely changed. Automotive gasoline runs just fine in a piston aircraft engine that has a low compression ratio. I've put almost 1000 hours on my Lyc O-320 (150hp, 7.0:1 CR) using mostly mogas and blended 100LL/mogas when I fly x-c and only 100LL is available. My engine is much cleaner inside than other planes' engines at my airport who burn 100LL exclusively. My oil stays cleaner, which will help this engine easily reach and go beyond the standard 2000 hour TBO. My spark plugs stay cleaner, the cylinders stay cleaner and my exhaust system stays cleaner. I have had zero problems with the engine valves or any part of the fuel system on my little airplane. The only detriment is that it is a bit of a hassle to hauling a pickup truck full of jerry cans of auto gas out to my airport, and people look at me with great suspicion when I'm filling them all up at once at a gas station, but I should be thankful that at least I can still buy auto gas that hasn't been contaminated with ethanol here.
FFFeeeeeeeeeed me Seymore
Just set me up a basic sig... 10 PRINT "Gordon Aplin" : GOTO 10