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GLOOP WORLD

I saw on my TV (so it must be true) long strings of 'carbon eaters' are growing apace in the warmer oceans. I can hear those top scientist exclaiming: "Wow, we never thought of that."
What else did they 'never thought of'? Perhaps they should be preparing for un-navigable, viscous, oceans before they bother with any more fanciful guesswork?

Heathrow must be allowed to expand as it makes no sense for the UK economy to be hindered from staying in the first tier of European infrastructure. Aircraft noise and pollution as well as Carbon emmissions are and will further be reduced by the newer technologies being introduced into aircraft and engine design. The A380 uses 20% less fuel per passenger than the Boeing 747 and the new generation engines will further that.
I am from Belfast , when I want to visit friends and do business in other areas of the world I have no other hub airports to fly through. So should I give up and lose business jobs and friends, maybe the emmissions from all areas should be looked at including China and India, this is global lets work globally.

The pro third runway group say that extra capacity is crucial, so that Heathrow can remain the number 1 hub airport in Europe. That may be true but why is this so important? If people fly to another city to transfer flights, great! Why aspire to be 'top of the league' for traffic congestion, poor air quality, noise pollution etc. Let some other foolish city have this 'privilege'.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is about jobs either. West London has very low unemployment and no-one loses their job (in the short term) if capacity remains the same. In the long run, let other airports take market share and downsize Heathrow, the bane of London!

Lastly, even if the economic need is more important than the environmental considerations, only an idiot would pour more money into Heathrow. A 5yr old would put an airport next to the coastline to reduce the effect of noise and air pollution. What do we do; expand an airport where flight paths go right across millions of homes? Genius!

The effect of job creation must be seen as of great importance by Lord Turner and the Climate Change watchdog when considering the expansion of Heathrow. Based on some very optimistic assumptions, they argue that savings in CO2 elsewhere could be sufficient to allow aviation to be expanded, whilst sticking with the target of 80% reductions in CO2 by 2050. If we are going to work to an overall CO2 budget, then extra jobs in aviation must result in fewer jobs elsewhere. But how many?



Currently, DEFRA reveal that the CO2 emissions per average job is around 6 Tonnes/pa (excluding commuting). An 80% reduction would bring this down to a target of 1.2 T/pa. Using the Aviation White Paper’s figure for emissions, divided by all air industry (200,000) and associated supporting / supported workers (600,000), we get to 46T/pa. If we apply the IPCC recommended figure of 2.7 for radiative forcing we get a CO2 equivalent figure of 124T/pa



Major savings need to be and can made for most jobs, so for the medium term, we could assume that the average of 6T/pa will come down to 2T/pa. Unfortunately, the potential for savings in aviation are not so promising, partly because of the need for fuels with high calorific value like kerosene. However, allowing for some improvements in technology, air traffic control, taxiing, etc, we could assume that 124 T/pa could come down to say 100 T/pa.



100 divided by 2 is 50. This means that for every job created in the air industry, about fifty jobs have to be shed elsewhere! Alternatively, 100% CO2 reductions would need to be made on all other jobs!



Is this fuel gluttony by aviation worth the job losses it will cause?



David Weight and Anthony Weight.

I live nowhere near the airport so if it goes ahead it will not upset my life.

However, London is surrounded by airports, all busy, catering to the self indulgent holiday maker. 95% of air traffic is pleasure so not very important. In fact, if the British stopped going abroad it would do a great deal to help our balance of payments.

Certainly, if I lived anywhere near an airport I would be against it. Millions being spent on a few holiday makers? Rubbish.

Forget the global warming arguement, because I suspect that is another government lie. Climate change, yes.

Around 7% barrel of oil is refined to jet fuel. The proportion can be increased by changing the profile of a refinery, but that would be at the expense of petrol and diesel.

Taking into account the phased introduction of more efficient aircraft, the White Paper envisaged air traffic expansion would require global crude oil production to double, whereas in fact it passed its peak in 2006 according to BP's Statistical Review.

The state of the industry reflects this as aircraft orders are cancelled and redundant aircraft are parked at Basingstoke as airlines are bankrupted by jet fuel prices.

The economic justification is based on the use of Heathrow by City financial institutions which are now in paralysis. Air traffic including freight is down by 10%.

If the runways at Heathrow and Stansted are built they will be simply provide parking lots for more redundant aircraft. Gordon Brown cannot come to terms with the job losses at Broughton wing factory, caused by EU soft loans to AirBus, to which Britain contributed, building a facility not needed to meet the market requirement unsupported by adequate fuel supplies. He believes that the jobs will be saved if he builds the runways, but they wont be.

Destroying a whole community for no good reason will be a damning legacy for Gordon Brown.

I have submitted the above to Harriet Harman and Hilary Benn. I hope they can get this over to Gordon Brown.

Iain in Belfast has convinced me! Why should he not visit his friends and lose business in other parts of the world?

Let me know when Belfast airport is handling a flight every 90 seconds. (you will be able to tell, as the government will build a ten lane motorway next to your house and all your kids will have asthma) and I promise I'll stop by to get my 'duty frees' on my way to China. Ta very much!

Capacity will increase without adding any new runways because aircraft are getting larger and air traffic control is getting better.

The website, www.heathrowairport.com, states (on 12/1/2009) that Heathrow has 417,000 aircraft movements and 67.3 million passengers per annum. This works out at an average of only 143 passengers per aircraft. As new high capacity aircraft come in to service the average number of passengers per plane is bound to rise even without any intervention. If air taxes, landing fees, etc are based on the number of aircraft and not on the number of passengers we can expect to see a better uptake of high capacity aircraft and better efforts to fill the available seats.

The number of passengers per plane is already increasing with Airbus offering over 800 (on the A380-800). Currently Boeing only offer capacities up to 535 (on the 747-400) but they are unlikely to want to stay in second place for long. By 2020 there is every prospect of many more designs of ultra large planes coming into service for short haul as well as long haul.

The frequency of plane movements basically depends on how close it is safe for two planes to get and this in turn depends on accurately knowing where both planes are and on accurate flying. Recent improvements in GPS for aircraft, fly-by-wire control systems and computerised air traffic control suggest that by 2020 we may be able to fly planes much closer together without endangering passengers and thus significantly increase the number of planes per hour.

Technology seems likely to give the government the increased capacity it wants without any need for a third runway.

Like a previous commenter I live nowhere near Heathrow so I have no particular axe to grind from that point of view. However the whole point of this debate is that to take the risk of expanding a very polluting form of transport ie aviation in the hope that future technology "might" be able to solve its rising CO2 emissions is just Plain Stupid. If and when the technology exists then the debate can be revisited but for now there is only one course of action - abandon all expansion plans and instead initiate immediate contraction of short and medium length flights for all but the most important reasons. Take the train and relax instead, and help to set a good example to the rest of the world.

I could understand the third runway for Heathrow argument if it was a full length runway capable of handling the more fuel efficient bigger jets. However, it would appear that its a short runway aimed primarily at the few celebrity Corporate Nazi's in their Learjet's. They can just nip into Heathrow from small regional airports and then transfer to first class for longer distance. Hardly likely to create many extra jobs or benefit the majority of air passengers.

The CO2 argument shows how stupid the whole idea of Kyoto is. If the planes don't land at Heathrow, they will land somewhere else like Paris or Amsterdam producing just about the same amount of CO2. It just won't be on the UK's column of the ledger. This is why any agreement must include all nations. If China and India aren't going to comply, then we just export our high CO2 producing jobs there. Can it get any dumber? Just wait until the EU's next suggestion on climate change.

OVERVIEW

When we watch ants at work they seem to be random - dashing about in all directions. However, closer inspection shows method and advantage in their activity.
Were we to study human movement from some elevated observation point, would similar advantage be apparent?
I suspect the word FLIGHT tells us a lot about what is really going on. We have come a long way from the 'field day' as respite from everyday.
Is being on a plane simple 'going on the pier' - but in the age of technology?
One can only assume, the next step will be when, at any one time, a significant proportion of the population are on space flights. But when they get back, that tin is still tied to their tail. . .

Regarding the Third Runway problem, there already exists a proven, British-developed, aviation transport technology that is actually capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions whilst doing away with the need for the Third Runway and providing much needed jobs in the civil engineering sector.
Several government departments (including BERR and the Department of Transport) are aware of this technology and it has passed Critical Design Review with one of Europe’s largest aircraft companies. However, this concept does not appear to have been considered by the Government as a potential solution to the Third Runway debate.
This hybrid air vehicle technology is considered by an increasing number of environmental experts as being the only aerospace solution to provide low emissions. It’s VTOL (vertical take-off & landing) capability could remove the necessity for the Third Runway entirely, whilst opening up a new, environmentally friendly system of aviation-based regional transport. The vehicles can carry passengers or goods (maximum payload 200 tonnes) and so a wide potential for worldwide import/export also exists.
Without going into the small print, the hybrid air vehicle comprises a new combination of a number of long established technologies with ‘lifting body’ aerodynamic lift, buoyant lift using safe helium, vectored thrust and hover cushion landing gear. The technology has been developed over more than 30 years by British Aeronautical Society Silver Medal Winner Roger Munk and his team based at Cardington, Bedfordshire and could be fully in service before the 2020 deadline at significantly lower cost.
A considerable amount of sunk costs have already been spent on development, thus scaling down the cost of launch-to-production. The technology produces very low noise levels and the VTOL/STOL technology means infrastructure costs can be kept to a minimum. Further, any investment in this technology would undoubtedly boost the economy by creating significant sustainable jobs in this time of economic downturn.
The technology has attracted many heavyweight advocates and supporters and recently featured in major new US TV documentary series on the environment. It has the potential to form the backbone of a relatively low cost, air transport system, providing solutions to UK regional / short haul passenger (incl. city-centre) operations, and international freight services including direct delivery to distribution centres, all capable of being integrated into a ‘green’ Heathrow scenario as a means of avoiding the necessity for the Third Runway.
In addition, the product would provide much needed work for the UK civil aircraft manufacturing and powerplant sector, whilst offering a World lead in the reduction of aviation transport GHG emissions.