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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."
I agree that we need vastly more information than we currently have, and further agree that I don't think the government should be micromanaging like this, but what if some companies found it profitable to do so on their own (fuel optimizations, etc.)?
Surely there is much yet to discover about our planet and the way it works, and I agree that emissions standards must be scrutinized with respect to their economic impacts...I feel that the knee-jerk reaction Al Gore seems to be trying to illicit is not in our best interests economically, but I don't see any harm in people/companies trying to lessen our impact on the world around us...unless it means killing industry as we know it. There must be a balance of some sort.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
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.
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> With China the new carbon dioxide emissions leader
The US is still winning by far if you look at emissions per capita, which is the more relevant figure. You would expect a country with twicce the population to give out about twice the emissions, everything else being equal.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Freeman Dyson on Climate Models
The first of my heresies says that all the fluff about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.
But I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.
The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
There's no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. The warming happens in places and times where it is cold, in the arctic more than the tropics, in the winter more than the summer, at night more than the daytime.
I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.
He also worked out a way to reverse global warming quite cheaply.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's actually really surprising how much airlines currently *don't* do to optimize fuel costs....
Actually, they go to great lengths to minimize fuel burn. The reason they're often not at optimum altitude or speed is due to ATC constraints. At most (not all) airports, you'll have a much earlier than optimum descent from cruise altitude, followed by being high on the downwind leg (leaving enough space for departing aircraft to get out under the arrivals), followed by a tight, slam dunk, high drag approach or a loooong downwind while you do a low level fuel annihilation run due to the amount of traffic arriving.
Oceanic routes have huge spacing requirements due to the lack of radar coverage. Because of that, it's often difficult to get a clearance to a new altititude while over the pond. It's not uncommon to cross the ocean at one altitude for the entire crossing, even though the optimum altitude will go up as the aircraft gets lighter.
So, airlines do the best they can with the constraints they face. Improving the ATC system will be a big help.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
India and China are still developing and couldn't give two shits about all of our initiatives if any cost them money.
;)
Of course they will, if continuing emissions will in the long run be more expensive, and lead to a decrease in living standards.
For instance - much of Asia gets it fresh water from snow melting in the mountain ranges during the summer. Last couple of years, less snow has fallen, and much of it melts during the winter. Then when spring and summer comes, and it is time to plant crops - droughts.
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"
Do you reject all science that doesn't have a complete testable model behind it? In science we can never be 100% sure about anything, but there are other ways to tackle a problem. For instance, we can discover that some gases absorb solar radiation better than others (180 yrs ago), postulate that if this warms stuff on a small scale, perhaps it might also affect thing globally, (110 yrs ago) then we can discover that climate is really really complicated, and we can continue to examine interactions and say with increasing confidence over many decades that humans do in fact effect thing globally (too much to link to, sorry).
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
Yeah, you are clearly the rational and un-biased one here.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.
Do I detect the smell of burning martyr? Let me guess, another one who takes scientific scrutiny of his claims as attempts at censorship.
It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds.
Lie, some countries have kept records of climate ever since the invention of the meteorological instruments in the 17th century, today we have over 7000 stations that measure land temperatures, we also use satellites to measure sea levels, water and troposphere temperatures.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
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.
this is a ridiculous argument that keeps being brought up as a reason to defer or cancel any planned control of pollution.
It's flawed in two ways. One, it presumes that any prevention of pollution benefits us only globally, if at all. That if we reduce our pollution by damaging our economy we do it to ward of the *possible* spectre of global warming, and that other nations that might ignore our work (thereby gaining an economic advantage) will damage the environment just as much as we would have done. This is ignoring the fact that pollution may end up being global, but it starts local. Countries with the strictest controls on pollution have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, the lowest incidences of environmental disasters. The benefits aren't that you *might* reduce global warming (if it exists or not), but that you *will* increase the quality of your citizens lives.
Flaw number two, is that we will be damaged economically by reducing CO2 through legislation. For a start, the US has seen a decrease in CO2 per GDP dollar over the last few decades. Americans are making more money, and doing it cleaner. And it can't be blamed solely on the loss of manufacturing jobs from the US either, as Germany is the worlds largest exporter, and has a much lower pollution level per dollar of goods exported than the US or China.
in the EU, where environmental legislation is toughest, CO2 per GDP is the lowest in the world. The top rankings show that the countries with least CO2 per GDP are also those with highest productivity in the world. Norway and Luxembourg both have higher GDP per hour worked than the US and still manage to have much lower CO2 per GDP unit.
The fact is, that it is ABSOLUTELY possible to have stricter pollution controls in place, and yet to be competitive with countries that do not comply to the same high standards.
This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down.
As a fellow living in one of the most micromanaged, government intrusive counties in the world, and also one of the richest, cleanest and with the highest standard of living in the world, I would like to say that it is clear to me the US could do with some more open government intervention and less supposedly invisible hand market control. If anything has bought the US down in the last decade, it's been corruption and abuse from large corporations not kept in check by government.
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.
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make install -not war
What kills me about these arguments is pretty basic. IF there is an impact from our emissions on our planet, which MAY be negative, and which CAN be avoided, or perhaps lightened, by the decrease in output- why not decrease output? The economic argument is hogwash- these same companies (auto/truck manufacturers, jet engine/aircraft manufacturers) spend millions of dollars in R&D on their products; the spur of forced investment into this field will encourage economic growth, as this cutting edge field matures in whichever country pioneers it. In addition to creating an entire new sector, much as the Ethanol push has done in the USA, and while some companies may suffer, much as with the Prius and other hybrid cars, offering an alternative to the standard high emission models will appeal to some consumers and drive the development of this field and the advancement of technologies and the companies bringing them to market. Forced adoption of these technologies will further spur growth and investment. Again, while some incumbent companies may suffer due to their lack of foresight or corporate dexterity, any loss to these companies in jobs will be made up, likely with gains, in the new industry.
The argument that other nations are advancing and will surpass our output is also pointless. As a market leader, the USA has the ability to establish products worldwide. The adoption of these products here will spur copycat import products, and likely will result in their use in these developing first-world nations. In addition, the USA can use it's trade imbalances and leverage with these countries to spur their adoption of these technologies- where they're not already leading us, that is, as in India with their 100% natural gas taxi and bus fleets.
A few technological innovations which could help stem or prevent the devastating impacts of global warming are listed below; some are really basic concepts, too.
-Zero-emissions gasoline engines via gas/emissions recovery and storage (exchanged for empty containers at gas stations)
-Biodiesel-producing algae capable of processing the CO2, waste heat, and other emissions from coal-fired power plants and growing from it (already under testing in labs)
-Battery-powered cars (big capacitors, big nanotech batteries, potentially fuel cells, no problems)
-Zero-emissions factory environments (heat, water vapor, co2, etc recovered and reused/processed/stored)
All of these technologies can bring American companies into the 21st century and revolutionize the entire world's concepts of how to deal with emissions- and potentially save a large percentage of the human race while doing it, and reaping enormous profits.
I like to show people this chart: Wikipedia CO2/Temp Chart because most people, when they see exactly how far off of the normal scale we are, understand that doing ANYTHING is better than saying 'we don't know enough to do anything about it yet!' We all bear a shared responsibility for this planet, and we should do what we can to attempt to preserve it for our descendants.
love and peace.
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
Fuel should be leaded!
Indeed it should. We'd be a lot better off without the filthy menace of unleaded petrol pumping benzene vapours into the atmosphere. Lead is toxic - massively toxic in certain compounds (lead acetate was what did in the Romans, from making a sweet by boiling wine in lead pots), but practically inert in the form that comes out of petrol engine exhausts. Furthermore, the lead carbonate that you get mostly settles out on the first 18" or so of exhaust pipe.
By comparison, unleaded petrol uses benzene instead of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock agent, which is highly toxic and carcinogenic. Then on top of that we've got the eco-disaster that is catalytic converters, belching out dense clouds of hydrogen sulphide unless they're run at extremely high exhaust gas temperatures - which produces massive amounts of nitrogen oxides. By a nasty little quirk, catalytic converters make car exhaust *more* polluting when driven at low speeds (such as in towns, where they'd be most useful) than when driven at motorway speeds.