Green wings

With the industry’s continued growth – the current downturn notwithstanding – this is expected to grow to three per cent by 2050.

However, public pressure in recent years has led the industry to take the lead in reducing its environmental impact. This has seen a number of manufacturers, nongovernment organisations, airlines and other interested parties establish new taskforces and alliances to deal with tackling the industry’s poor environmental image.

Many airlines have also taken their own initiatives, such as offering their passengers voluntary carbon offset programs. Locally, all the major airlines with the exception of Tiger Airways offer some form of carbon offsets to their passengers.

Most activity though has involved collaboration between aircraft operators, manufacturers and non-government organisations to address aviation’s climate change issues at a global level. One of the major steps in this direction was the release of an environmental strategy in 2007 by IATA (the International Air Transport Association) aiming to reduce aviation emissions while also allowing the industry to continue to grow.

The plan centres around the four pillars of more efficient aircraft technologies and fuels, efficient procedures, efficient infrastructure, and positive economic encouragement for the industry to continue to reduce its emissions footprint. At its 2008 AGM, IATA also added a commitment to achieving carbon-neutral growth by 2020.

To achieve this, the industry is taking a number of measures, such as developing biofuels and new air traffic management procedures. However, with airlines set to be included in emissions trading schemes (ETSs) around the world, the industry is lobbying governments to ensure that it receives fair treatment.

Emissions trading

One of the most hotly debated topics both within and outside the industry is over emissions trading, which a number of governments around the world are adopting as a key mechanism to force industries, including aviation, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Many developed countries have implemented or propose placing caps on industrial emissions, with any further growth in emissions requiring the purchase of permits on the open market to increase their emissions.

However, a number of airlines are worried about inequalities between the different schemes across borders.

One of the most contentious is the European Union’s ETS, which will force all airlines operating flights to Europe to buy permits to cover the emissions created on flights from their last port of departure.

Many airlines, particularly those in the Asia Pacific, argue that this places them at a disadvantage due to the long distances that their aircraft travel to operate into Europe.

Organisations such as the Aviation Global Deal (AGD), IATA and others are hopeful that the UN’s Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen during December will help to deliver a coordinated framework on emissions trading.

“Aviation is a global cross-border industry.

The last thing we need is a patchwork of national policies imposing conflicting or contradictory requirements on airlines,” said Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey when announcing that his airline had joined the AGD group in May. In Australia, Qantas and Virgin Blue have expressed their concerns about the government’s proposed ETS in its climate change White Paper. While identified as a “strongly affected industry”, the aviation industry would not be eligible for free or subsidised permits, unlike “emissions-intensive, trade exposed” industries such as coal fired power generation.

Interestingly, the Qantas Group has argued that having the ETS only applying to domestic flying would make it less competitive against international travel.

“At a time when we are trying to boost domestic tourism, a trip from Perth to Bali will improve in value, compared to say, the Gold Coast or Melbourne,” Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia meeting in Perth in early July.

At the smaller end of the market, the Regional Aviation Association of Australia has expressed its relief that most of its members will not be required to purchase carbon credits. However, with fuel refiners having to purchase credits, it seems likely that this will be passed on to operators through higher fuel costs.

While the federal government has introduced its ETS legislation into Parliament in the hopes of implementing it in 2011, it appears that there may still be some room for debate on the issue. The Senate appeared in mid July to be set to make significant changes, delay or even outright reject the legislation to establish the ETS. At the time of writing it was unclear whether that will have a direct impact on the industry.

Despite the progress in ETSs around the world, there are some within the industry who feel adding extra costs to the industry is at best a bandaid solution to reducing greenhouse gasses. “We believe that technical solutions for aviation are required and are, in the long run, much more productive means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

Purchasing permits from other sectors is short term thinking,” said Boeing’s managing director of environment strategy, Billy Glover.

Biofuels

Another major issue for the industry is reducing its reliance upon fossil fuels, with a number of manufacturers, airlines and refiners focusing on developing plant based biofuels as a viable, emissions reducing alternative to petroleum fuel in commercial jet engines.

Refined from plant oils such as jatropha, camelina and algae, biofuels hold a number of key advantages over petroleum fuels.

Firstly, due to the carbon dioxide the plants soak up before being refined for their oil, burning biofuels is effectively carbon neutral.

In a 50/50 mix with jet fuel, this could reduce emissions by between 60-65 per cent, relative to petroleum fuel. Trials have also shown that due to their higher energy content, they can also reduce the fuel burn of an aircraft.

Boeing, along with four airlines and engine manufacturers, has undertaken a series of test flights to evaluate biofuels, with overall positive results. “Working with a number of leading airlines, we’ve successfully proven the technical feasibility of using these advance generation fuels in commercial jetliners,” said Glover.

Air New Zealand’s biofuel test flight of a Boeing 747-400 from Auckland on December 30 last year saw some promising results in the analysis of the data gathered. With one of its engines run on a 50 per cent mix of jatropha biofuel and Jet-A1, Air NZ found that using such a mix on a 747-400 could reduce the aircraft’s fuel burn on a 12 hour sector by 1. 2 per cent, reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 4. 5 tonnes.

Progress is being made in the certification of biofuels for commercial use. In late June, the American Society of Testing and Material’s International Aviation Fuels Subcommittee passed a new fuel specification for synthetic fuels, which will include hydrotreated renewable jet blends such as current generation biofuels.

While this is a major step forward, there are still logistical and sustainability challenges.

“The next step is ensuring that the production of the plant stocks for these fuels – from growing and harvesting, to production and use – is done as sustainably as possible,” said Glover. Key criteria for this process will be ensuring that there is little competition with food sources as there is with other biofuels such as ethanol derived from sugar and corn. To that end, there has been a major focus on crops such as jatropha, which produces high energy inedible oil and can grow in harsh environments.

Glover has also backed algae as a sustainable source, labelling it the “Holy grail” as it can be grown in areas such as sewerage farms and brackish water. Some progress is being made on that front, with New Zealand company Aquaflow Bionomic last year announcing that it had been able to produce synthetic parrafinic kerosene (which can be blended with jet fuel) from algae using a process developed by Honeywell subsidiary UOP.

Securing a reliable supply in commercial quantities will be another issue to contend with. As the alternative fuels industry is only in its infancy, developing international distribution channels to a level which will allow for airlines to consistently use biofuel blends will present its own challenges. “This will take some time, but we believe we’re clearly on the right path and will see these fuels become available in three-five years,” said Glover.

Nevertheless, Air New Zealand has set itself some bold targets for use of biofuels across its operations. “We remain committed to our ambition of having 10 per cent of our fuel needs by 2013 met by alternative fuels, but appreciate there are many more steps to be taken by experts in other areas to deliver biofuel as a commercial aviation fuel source,” Air New Zealand’s chief pilot David Morgan told the Eco-Aviation conference in May.

Air Navigation

One of the areas where the industry is advancing rapidly is in air navigation technologies and procedures, which are aimed at reducing the fuel burn and therefore emissions of commercial flights.

A significant milestone has been the adoption by Airservices Australia, Airways New Zealand and the US FAA of the ASPIRE (Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions) program. Under the program, the three air navigation service providers (ANSPs) have been working together to use a number of current navigation procedures to demonstrate their ability to reduce aircraft emissions.

“Over the past 12 months, the ASPIRE program has included some demonstration flights which really were about having a look at the current procedures and fully utilising those procedures, while also looking at new upcoming procedures and taking a measure as to what sort of savings we could get,” said Airservices ASPIRE coordinator Greg Houghton.

So far, there have been three trial flights to test a number of key ASPIRE initiatives, involving Air New Zealand, United Airlines and Qantas flights between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, with early signs showing positive results.

On Air New Zealand’s ASPIRE 1 flight from Auckland to San Francisco, fuel burn was reduced by four per cent, reducing its carbon emissions by over 10 tonnes.

While some flights included other initiatives, such as priority taxi, takeoff and landing clearances and a greater use of ground power, Houghton explains that in most cases the trial flights were focused on gaining efficiencies by bringing together a number of established procedures, including user preferred routes and flextracks, dynamic airborne rerouting procedures and reduced separations. With these procedures, the pilots were able to optimise the operation of their aircraft to reduce fuel burn.

Houghton admitted that the three ASPIRE trial flights had been conducted in a “perfect bubble” scenario, and as such not all procedures, such as priority ground clearances, could realistically be expected to form part of the everyday operations of airlines on the route.

Similarly, some measures will require a greater application of technology. “There are some smaller initiatives that we tried – for instance optimised descent. We’re a little bit away from making that an everyday approach. It’s a technology that is on the cusp of being available, but to consistently apply it with all the constraints around airports, there’s a bit of work to be done on that,” said Houghton.

ASPIRE is set to be expanded soon, with the Japanese Civil Aviation Board to sign on by the end of the year, while the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore will join next year. Airservices is also set to be a key player in a similar initiative across the Indian Ocean called INSPIRE, which will involve ANSPs from South Africa, the Middle East and Indian subcontinent.

Another major push from ANSPs globally to reduce emissions is coming through the adoption of performance based navigation (PBN) procedures. In April, ICAO, along with a number of industry bodies including the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation and IATA, signed a declaration endorsing performance based navigation procedures, which will help to improve the efficiency of aircraft operations.

PBN aims to use the increased accuracy of navigational technology in association with techniques such as required navigation performance (RNP) to optimise flightpaths and procedures, helping to cut down some of the fuel burn, emissions and noise created by aircraft.

Australia is leading the way with this, and Airservices announced on June 24 that it signed a contract with Naverus to develop RNP procedures for 28 airports around Australia over the next five years, making it the first country to have a nationwide PBN network.

Based on trials of RNP approaches at Brisbane Airport during 2007 involving Qantas aircraft, the procedures save approximately 125kg of fuel and 390kg of carbon dioxide emissions compared to a standard approach. Extrapolating this out, it is expected that the nationwide adoption of RNP could save 39 million kg of fuelburn per year, with a corresponding 122 million tonne reduction in CO2 emissions.

“This application of these procedures will allow us to deliver benefits to the aviation industry and the community through improvements in aviation safety and efficiency and environmental impact,” Airservices CEO Greg Russell said at the signing of the Naverus contract.

A low emissions future

Biofuels and changes to air navigation procedures appear to be the earliest bringers of pollution reduction for air transport, while emissions trading schemes are also likely to force airlines to take action where possible to reduce their emissions in order to continue to grow.

Despite these steps, it appears that as in years past that the biggest driver of emissions reduction will come from advances in aircraft technology, particularly from powerplants.

With new engine technologies aimed at reducing fuel consumption in development, such as CFM International’s LEAP-X engine and Pratt & Whitney’s PW1000G Geared Turbofan, it appears that there is a strong development path for reducing jet fuel consumption by at least 15 per cent compared to current generation engines, therefore potentially creating major emissions reductions.

Added to that are other technologies, such as lightweight carbon composite materials which are helping to reduce the fuel burn of the next generation of airlines, such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350.

Research is also continuing on a number of different fronts which could ultimately reduce the industry’s carbon footprint further. The recent win by a University of Queensland team of the Airbus Fly Your Ideas competition for research into using plant composites to create low weight aircraft interiors demonstrates that the industry is looking to make even more progress in reducing its environmental impact.

To ensure that this can take place, the industry has called on governments around the world to smooth the path for these future developments. As Giovanni Bisignani put it at the IATA AGM in Kuala Lumpur, “We can be proud of going farther and faster than any other industry. Air transport is a model for environmental responsibility for other industries to follow. The challenge will be for governments to catch up. ”