Japanese aerospace union officials cast new light on problems with the 787’s power distribution panels Wednesday, saying one malfunction last year caused a burned circuit board and disclosing two other previously unpublicized incidents.
I keep meaning to link to this thoughtful post from way back in January (Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday).
The private car is unpopular these days. When it isn’t blamed for congestion, it’s blamed for pollution. And, invariably, the proposed solutions are restrictions on driving, increased taxes for public transit and other punitive programs or regulations.
But the trouble with seeing driving as the enemy is that it’s too easy to lose sight of its benefits.
Driving is a liberating technology, and we ought to recognize this, especially as we approach Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
A correlation I would never have thought about.
More on reducing the aviation industries emissions through technological advancements and efficiency.
Many airlines are testing biofuels now and generating good results:
…findings from the almost 1200 flights that the biofuel mix was not only reliable but delivered 1 per cent better efficiency. (Lufthansa says its bio kerosene was 85 per cent Camelina Sativa (wild flax), 15 per cent Jatropha oil and 5 per cent animal fat.)
KLM is about to start their own trials.
This, to me, is one of the positive and effective directions we can be taking toward emissions control and reduction. Everyone wins here.
The EU has a “cap and trade” emissions control system called the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). You should read the Wikipedia link, it makes for interesting reading. The first phase saw a net increase in European emissions and significant carbon pricing volatility.
Recently the EU has bundled aviation into the system, requiring airlines to purchase credits in the system. That system was widened to include any flights departing or arriving from an EU airport. Obviously quite a few countries took issue with this, including the USA. The USA actually passed legislation barring US airlines from paying into the ETS. The USA has proposed an airspace-based system, making airspace over international waters essentially exempt. Airline lobbying groups obviously influence the American stance on the issue:
Airlines for America (A4A), the U.S. airlines lobby, continues to campaign against any market-based mechanism, such as a carbon market, for the rest of the decade, preferring an approach which focuses on improving “technology, operations and infrastructure”.
Eyes have turned to the ICAO to see if they can reconcile differences among aviation markets and develop a global emission control system. The EU has recently suspended the ETS for international flights (flights departing and arriving inside the EU still have to participate). This suspension is set to expire at the end of the year if no ICAO-based solution is agreed to and implemented.
This report from Reuters, based on research published by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in the UK, gives an idea of the emission targets that the EU wants to see:
…the report explored likely growth to 2050. By then, EU road maps state carbon emissions from all sectors must fall by between 80 and 95 percent versus 1990 levels to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the level scientists say is needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
I can see where emissions levels that ambitious leaves little choice but to artificially restrict emissions. Improvements in technology, operations, and infrastructure are not likely to bring that kind of reduction, especially given the growth of the aviation industry.
However, placing an artificial cap on emissions is, in effect, putting a cap on the amount of air travel that can occur. Airlines aren’t going to pay for those carbon credits out of their own pockets, they are going to pass the costs on to travelers in the ticket prices. Higher fares means demand will decrease. In an industry with a profit margin of 1%, this is going to be quite disruptive to the airlines.
What if more realistic goals were set? Could we then turn our focus toward working with what we already have?
What if all this money being passed around in an artificial carbon market was instead used for technological research and development? Or infrastructure improvements? Or operational streamlining?
Photo by Charles Biel.
I’m a sucker for grain elevators as a background for railfan photography… probably has something to do with my Kansas upbringing. This is a set of 3GS21B switcher locomotives in Saginaw, Texas.
According to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano within 3 days of the “sequester” budget cuts taking effect we are already seeing lines “150 to 200 per cent as long as we would normally expect” at airport security screening locations.
However, when contacted by The Daily Telegraph, spokespeople for both O’Hare and LAX, as well as representatives from the travel industry, denied that airports had been hit by delays.
“We haven’t had any slowdowns at all,” said Marshall Lowe, a spokesman for LAX. Mr Lowe said that he had been on duty over the weekend and received no reports of unusual security delays.
Politician reports immediate affects on airports of the scary, doomsday budget cuts. Newspaper promptly calls airports who say there is nothing to report. This is proper journalism.
Note to leaders in Washington, quit using our transportation infrastructure as one of your political props.
So the “sequester” has come and the FAA is doubling down on stupid. 173 contract towers are set to close on April 7. So a 4% budget cut ($600 million in cuts divided by a budget of $15.2 million) is forcing 173 towers to close. Is the FAA running such a tightly disciplined budget that they can’t find somewhere else to cut 4% of their spending?
The reality here is that even with the budget cuts now in effect people in Washington are still playing politics. One side of the argument basically staked out the position that if we didn’t stop the cuts it would hurt the economy and the people of the country. Now that the cuts are in place I guess they have to make sure their doomsaying comes true.
Leaders in Washington are playing politics with our transportation infrastructure.
Christine Negroni has gleaned some interesting information from a Japanese Transport Safety Bureau report including the following:
Japanese investigators are making a remarkable claim in the most recent update into the burning battery on an All Nippon Airways Dreamliner; the ship, JA804A was one of only three Boeing 787s to retain a wiring design the planemaker later revised.
The post is worth reading and even discusses some of the finer points of the Li-ion battery design in the 787.
50 787’s were in service when FAA grounded them. Here’s a summary of where each one is stranded.