How fast is fast enough? There is an innate desire to cut travel time so as to enjoy or work harder once one gets where is going. In air flight that dream was the Concorde which was retired from use a few years back due to fuel economics as well as other reasons.
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Aviation
Joachim Buse, Lufthansa airline’s head of aviation biofuel, last week said at an industry event in Washington, D.C. that biofuels could be the industry’s standard fuel in five to seven years.
According to Air Transport World, the airline executive said his company’s burnFAIR project has
The commercial aviation industry could go from being one of the dirtiest to being one of the cleanest in ten years, according to one of the industry’s best-known figures.
Richard Branson says the world’s 7,000 airlines could switch to low-carbon jet fuels much faster than
There is no doubt that climate change poses a grave danger, if there are any questions to be raised, they should be on our level of preparedness to face this challenge head on. We need to identify innovative ways of coming up with the most effective solutions in renewable energy and sustainability.
In addition to NASA's missions in space that amaze the world, our work in aeronautics continues to spur innovation and jobs.
NASA is providing the $1.65 million prize purse for the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation Green Flight Challenge competition, sponsored by Google, taking place this week outside of
Australia’s Jatenergy Limited energy company is to provide crude jatropha oil to Lufthansa for flight trials.
The Lufthansa tests are the world’s first, long-term trial of renewable jet fuel and will be used on Lufthansa’s regularly scheduled flights between Hamburg and Frankfurt.
Slowly but surely, an extraordinarily important new industry is slowly taking shape, with the potential to transform the global economy.
After years of existing largely as an environmentalist’s fantasy, commercial production of biofuels for the world civil aviation industry is slowly becoming a fact,
At a time when many are adopting the narrative that carbon markets are faltering, the European Union (EU) is aggressively pursuing the expansion of theirs to include aviation. One of only two mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade systems in the world, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) plans to fold in a
Aviation is responsible for an estimated 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and many believe they could be even more damaging because they release these pollutants high in the atmosphere.
Despite the immense challenges involved
All industries across the world face the same regulatory maze and misdirection. In some cases it has led to industry leaving and going to China where laws are more permissive, That is not an option for the aviation industry which flies everywhere. All aviation stakeholders, including manufacturers, airlines, airports and navigation service providers, have issued a
Boeing is one of the most recognizable names in the aviation industry, so when they come up with a new design it generates a great deal of buzz. While no one would necessarily be surprised about a redesigned 747 or 777 incarnation, it is always refreshing when they announce one of their green projects. The latest of their zero emissions projects was announced the other
Flying dwarfs any other individual activity in terms of carbon emissions, yet more and more people are traveling by air. With no quick technological fix on the horizon, what alternatives — from high-speed trains to advanced video conferencing — can cut back the amount we fly?
In most departments I have excellent green credibility, and my carbon footprint is small. I have not owned a car in more than 20 years and commute to work by subway. I walk to the market and generally no longer buy produce flown in from far away. I recycle. I have an air-conditioner, but use it only on the hottest of days. I have gone paperless with all my bills.
But my good acts of responsible environmental stewardship are undercut by one persistent habit that will be hard to break, if it is possible at all: I am a frequent flyer, Platinum Card. Last year, I traveled nearly 100,000 miles of mostly long-haul travel. And that figure puts me in the minor leagues compared to legions of business consultants, international lawyers, UN functionaries — and even climate scientists — who certainly travel much more.
As I wrote last week, aviation demand for biofuels is bursting at the seams. The trouble is, there are no easy alternatives. Sustainable, non-food feedstocks like camelina and jatropha are just getting traction and the process of turning algae into fuel is still under development, which leaves few alternatives for the petroleum-dependent aviation industry.
Unlike ground transportation, the key issue for airlines is that they are entirely dependent on liquid fuel, and this — right now — is hurting their bottom line. According to the Air Transport Association (ATA), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, fuel expenses have historically ranged from 10 to 15 percent of U.S. passenger airline operating costs, but averaged more than 35 percent in the third quarter of 2008.
With so much volatility in the price of oil over the last decade, who can blame the airline industry for “going big” these past couple months and placing bets on emerging renewable jet fuel companies?
The list of deals is long: AltAir signing an MOU with 14 airlines to supply camelina-based fuel, BioJet and Great Plains working together to develop their own green fuel derived from camelina, Kingfisher Airlines working with three companies on R&D for renewable jet fuel, and Qatar Airways leading a consortium to investigate potential biofuels, just to name a few.
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