The Washington Post has an article on a solar powered plane flight across the US - Solar powered plane completes history-making cross-country flight, lands at JFK airport.

A solar-powered aircraft completed the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight Saturday night, gliding to a smooth stop at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The flight plan for the revolutionary plane, powered by some 11,000 solar cells on its oversized wings, had called for it to pass the Statue of Liberty before landing early Sunday at New York. But an unexpected tear discovered on the left wing of the aircraft Saturday afternoon forced officials to scuttle the fly-by and proceed directly to JFK for a landing three hours earlier than scheduled.

Pilot Andre Borschberg trumpeted the milestone of a plane capable of flying during the day and night, powered by solar energy, crossing the U.S. without the use of fuel. “It was a huge success for renewable energy,” Borschberg said while standing in front of Solar Impulse on the runway at JFK. “The only thing that failed was a piece of fabric.”

The SMH reports that Virgin Australia, looking to escape the squeeze from scarcer fossil fuels, is partnering with a consortium including GE to produce biofuel for aviation from eucalypts - Plane biofuel to be made from eucalypt.

A consortium of companies is taking action by using eucalypt trees to develop a commercial biofuel for the Australian aviation industry.

"Innovation and creativity will play enormous roles as part of the transition to a low carbon future," said Ben Waters, director of ecomagination, GE Australia and New Zealand.

GE on Thursday announced it was joining Virgin Australia and other partners to research and develop the commercial biofuel.

The focus will be on using a thermochemical decomposition of organic material - at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen - to covert mallee eucalypt trees to the biofuel.

Mr Waters said a pilot biofuel production unit would be opened in Australia next year. ...

A recent CSIRO report estimated the aviation industry could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent, generate more than 12,000 jobs and reduce Australia's reliance on aviation fuel imports by $2 billion per annum over the next 20 years through the adoption of biofuels.

Other members of the consortium include Renewable Oil Corporation, the Future Farm Industries CRC, and Canadian biofuels company, Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation.

Technology Review reports that "KLM and Lufthansa say they'll burn bio-based jet fuel on regular routes" - Biofuels Take Off.

Last week, for the first time, a jumbo jet used a blend of biofuel and kerosene on a transatlantic flight. Also last week, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced a biofuel supply agreement to commence regular flights on a biofuel-petroleum blend on 200 Amsterdam-to-Paris runs starting in September. Lufthansa could beat it by a month under previously announced plans to launch a six-month test on Frankfurt-Hamburg flights.

Such regularly scheduled operations mark a big jump from the one-off biofuels flights that airlines have conducted since 2009. Aviation and biofuels sources say this indicates that biofuel-based jet fuels are ready to be scaled up. Amy Bann, director of environmental policy for Boeing's commercial airplanes division, says the KLM and Lufthansa announcements "signal to governments, fuel processors, and the financial community that the demand and market for these fuels exist."

Pressure to cap and ultimately reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is driving the developments. The European Commission is making flights within, into, and out of Europe subject to its carbon-trading scheme starting in 2012—a move that will cost the aviation industry an estimated €1.4 billion ($2 billion) next year and about €7 billion by 2020, according to a March 2011 report by Oslo-based consultancy Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.

Environmental groups say biofuels make sense for aviation, since they are the sector's only alternative to petroleum. "You're not going to have electric airplanes," says Kate McMahon, biofuels campaign coordinator for Washington-based Friends of the Earth.

Giles Parkinson at The Climate Spectator has a column on interest in biofuels (and electric vehicle adoption) from the airline industry as it contemplates a world where liquid fuels are in shorter supply - Flying high on biofuels

Don’t be surprised if airlines such as Qantas and Virgin, and big manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus, put in large orders for the first fleets of electric vehicles. They have a special interest in seeing the EV industry succeed: because the more vehicles that are plugged into sockets, the more fuel there is to fly planes.

It’s not that the airline industry is facing a Mad Max-style fuel crisis, but clearly the price of oil is going up. Supplies from alternative sources such as tar sands are heavier, and so will be more difficult, and more core costly, to turn into jet fuel, and carbon costs will also have an impact. So if tens of millions of electric cars can be plugged in by 2020 – as some optimistic forecasts would have us believe – then that leaves extra capacity for the aviation industry to find its own alternatives.

A new report released this week by the CSIRO, with the backing of the aviation industry, predicts that Australia is uniquely positioned to provide for one third of its transport fuel needs from a range of biofuel feedstocks. Land transport accounts for most of the demand – aviation is only 15 per cent – so if most of the personal transport system can plug into the grid, then home-grown biofuels could potentially provide for all of the country’s aircraft fuel needs. Even without the EV factor, existing and new non-food biomass fuels could provide 46 per cent of the aviation fuel needs of Australia and New Zealand by 2020, and 100 per cent by 2050. ...

So far there have been several test runs – by an Air NZ Boeing 747, a US Air Force F18 “green” Hornet, a Dutch Air Force Apache Helicopter – that have proven various bio-fuels. The US defence forces have set ambitious targets to replace jet fuel with biofuels – an issue of energy security as much as cost – and the commercial industry intends to follow in its wake, although at a slower pace.

“Many people thought it would take decades to develop these technologies, but we already know it is possible to fly with biofuels,” says Ian Thomas, the head of Boeing Australia. Thomas says the future of the industry – and anticipated future sales of 32,000 aircraft worth an estimated $3.6 trillion in coming decades – depends on the industry’s ability to develop these fuels, as well as designing lighter and more fuel efficient aircraft, and improving flight management programs.

The CSIRO report says urban waste is probably Australia’s most available and cheapest option at the moment. Lignocellulose – wood and stems from trees and crops – is the most abundant, but they face high refining costs. A range of potential new “exotic” sources are identified, with the most interesting being Pongonia, an inedible oil-yielding legume tree; algae, salt water and coastal plant varieties known as halophytes and a short rotation tree species known as coppice. But the costs of all these are relatively uncertain, and the industries will take some time to develop.

Like energy solutions, biofuels are likely to come from a portfolio of feedstocks. The major airlines are already pursuing various technologies. “There are no silver bullets here, just got silver shotguns,” says John Valastro, the head of risk and resilience at Qantas, which has already signed agreements with aspiring producers of fuels from urban waste, and from algae, and is looking to build its first refinery in the next couple of years.

The SMH has an article on a smartphone app that could help motorists reduce the amount of fuel wasted in traffic jams - IBM smartphone app predicts traffic jams.

IBM is testing smartphone software designed to predict traffic jams and warn motorists before they even take to the roads.

IBM said that its employees in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley areas of Northern California have been testing technology that "will ultimately help drivers around the world" avoid fouled traffic.

Those involved in the pilot project agree to have location-sensing capabilities in their smartphones automatically track where they drive and when, according to IBM Smarter Traveler program manager John Day.

The information is fed through the internet to computers that identify patterns such as commutes to and from work.

Meanwhile, data collected from roadway censors commonly used for online traffic maps is analysed to determine conditions that usually lead to trouble.

For example, congestion at a certain off-ramp or bridge entrance may consistently lead to traffic backing up in another area. The results are combined to form personalised predictions of when a motorist is apt to run into highway headaches.

"We wanted to take advantage of analytic tools to provide predictive capabilities; to get correlations with minor slowdowns and major ones that happen after that," Day told AFP. So you can run a query at any point for a journey and predict 35 or 40 minutes in advance what it will look like, then couple that with a personal approach for the individual traveler."

IBM researchers worked with California state highway authorities and a Mobile Millennium Team at the University of Berkeley, California, on the project.

The smartphone application lets people receive customized alerts warning of probable traffic trouble before they set out on commutes or other routine drives.

Dutch drivers might have wondered how it was that speed traps were always in just the right place to catch speeders. It turned out to be simple enough: if they owned a TomTom, their in-car satnav was spying on them, and the aggregated data about cars’ speed was being sold via the government to the police – who used it to set the traps.

The company, which is Europe’s largest satnav manufacturer, was forced this week into an embarrassing apology as the revelation emerged alongside its first-quarter financial earnings, which showed weak demand and let it to forecast growing sales from “service revenues” – including, it said, selling data to governments.

In a public apology (repeated in a video on YouTube), TomTom’s chief executive Harold Goddijn said the company sold the anonymous data believing it would be used to improve safety or relieve traffic bottlenecks.

“We never foresaw this kind of use and many of our clients are not happy about it,” he wrote, and promised licensing agreements would “prevent this type of use in the future.”

Normally the aggregated data would be used to tell subscribers to TomTom services how to route around traffic conditions and give improved estimates of journey time. The sale of data to the government was intended to help it understand causes of congestion and accidents.

But the police had a simpler idea for how to use the data to offset the cost of buying it, and followed that as well.

The timing of the admission comes just after a wave of concern over data collected by smartphones and passed back to the companies controlling them, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft.

The Climate Spectator has an article on Qantas' interest in jet fuel derived from algae - Oil and water.

Qantas last week announced the launch of its sustainable fuel strategy, a collaboration with San Francisco-based renewable energy group, Solazyme, to explore opportunities for algae-based sustainable aviation fuel. Qantas and Solazyme will work together over the next year to pursue potential for commercial production of Solazyme’s microbial derived aviation fuel, Solajet, in Australia. This latest move is part of the airline's long-term strategy to accelerate the commercialisation of 'drop-in' alternative jet fuels to help cut greenhouse gas emissions. Qantas already has a similar arrangement with the Solena Group for waste-based sustainable fuel.

In Australia, demand for aviation fuel is currently at about six billion litres a year, and Qantas’ Peter Broschofsky, who is coordinating the biofuels initiative as well as chairing the environment committee of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), says that $180 per gallon fuel in 2008 helped move the concept of lower cost, lower emission biofuels out of the too-hard basket. He also described how Boeing galvanised the industry behind the development of the Bio-SPK jet fuel specification, which most are predicting will be approved in the first half of 2011 and possibly late in the first quarter, says BiofuelsDigest. “Watch the flood,” Broschofsky predicted, “after the fuel is certified, interest will be at a fever pitch, and we want to get in ahead.”

As for the technology, according to Solazyme, it "allows algae to produce oil and biomaterials in standard fermentation facilities quickly, efficiently and at large scale." These can then be tailored for biofuel production, as well for the replacement for fossil fuels and plant oils. According to the company's website, a study undertaken in 2009 concluded that full lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from field-to-wheels for Solazyme's algal biofuel, Soladiesel, are 85 to 93 per cent lower than standard petroleum-based ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD).

The Guardian has a somewhat far-fetched article on the prospects for airships replacing planes - Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists.

Fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers and other foreign luxuries could be part of a global revolution by carrying cargo around the world in airships instead of planes, one of the UK's leading scientists has predicted.

The government's former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, told a conference that massive helium balloons – or blimps – would replace aircraft as a key part of the global trade network as a way of cutting global warming emissions.

Despite languishing in sci-fi B-movies for most of the last 70 years, King said several major air and defence companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, were working on designs, and the US defence department had recently made a large grant to help develop the technology.

As a result, the helium-powered ships could be carrying freight – and even passengers – in as little as a decade's time, King told the Guardian. "There are an awful lot of people we talk to who say this is going to happen," said King. "This is something I believe is going to happen."

King was speaking this week at the World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford, which has made transport a major focus of debate about global efforts to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, which are a major contributor to global warming and climate change. In Europe 22% of greenhouse gases are from transport, compared with 28 from heat and electricity, 21% from industry and construction and 9% each from agriculture and homes, according to the European Environment Agency.

The Guardian has George Monbiot's latest installment of his long campaign against the global airline industry - What links the banking crisis and the volcano?. I don't really agree with his conclusion - in the long run we'll find that we can electrify most forms of transport and air travel will consume much of our (vastly reduced) liquid fuel production.

We have several such vulnerabilities. The most catastrophic would be an unexpected coronal mass ejection – a solar storm – which causes a surge of direct current down our electricity grids, taking out the transformers. It could happen in seconds; the damage and collapse would take years to reverse, if we ever recovered. We would soon become aware of our dependence on electricity: an asset which, like oxygen, we notice only when it fails.

As New Scientist magazine points out, an event like this would knacker most of the systems which keep us alive. It would take out water treatment plants and pumping stations. It would paralyse oil pumping and delivery, which would quickly bring down food supplies. It would clobber hospitals, financial systems and just about every kind of business – even the manufacturers of candles and paraffin lamps. Emergency generators would function only until the oil ran out. Burnt-out transformers cannot be repaired; they must be replaced. Over the past year I've sent freedom of information requests to electricity transmitters and distributors, asking them what contingency plans they have made, and whether they have stockpiled transformers to replace any destroyed by a solar storm. I haven't got to the end of it yet, but the early results suggest that they haven't.

There's a similar lack of planning for the possibility that global supplies of oil might soon peak then go into decline. My FoI requests to the British government reveal that it has made no contingency plans, on the grounds that it doesn't believe it will happen. The issue remains the preserve of beardy lentil-eaters such as, er, the US joint forces command. Its latest report on possible future conflicts maintains that "a severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity".

It suggests that "by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10m barrels per day". A shortage of refining and production capacity is not the same thing as peak oil, but the report warns that a chronic constraint looms behind the immediate crisis: even under "the most optimistic scenario … petroleum production will be hard pressed to meet the expected future demand". A global oil shortage would soon expose the weaknesses of our complex economic systems. As the cultural anthropologist Joseph Tainter has shown, their dependence on high energy use is one of the factors that makes complex societies vulnerable to collapse.

His work has helped to overturn the old assumption that social complexity is a response to surplus energy. Instead, he proposes, complexity drives higher energy production. While complexity solves many problems – such as reliance on an exclusively local and therefore vulnerable food supply – it's subject to diminishing returns. In extreme cases the cost of maintaining such systems causes them to collapse. ...

For the third time in two years we've discovered that flying is one of the weakest links in our overstretched system. In 2008 the rising cost of fuel drove several airlines out of business. The recession compounded the damage; the volcano might ruin several more. Energy-hungry, weather-dependent, easily disrupted, a large aviation industry is one of the hardest sectors for any society to sustain, especially one beginning to encounter a series of crises. The greater our dependence on flying, the more vulnerable we are likely to become.

Over the past few days people living under the flight paths have seen the future, and they like it. The state of global oil supplies, the industry's social and environmental costs and its extreme vulnerability mean that current levels of flying – let alone the growth the government anticipates – cannot be maintained indefinitely. We have a choice. We can start decommissioning this industry while there is time and find ways of living happily with less of it. Or we can sit and wait for physical reality to simplify the system by more brutal means.

Technology Review has an article on some biomimicry inspired design work to enable lighter, more fuel efficient aircraft - Tough Coatings for Airplanes.

For decades, materials scientists have looked to naturally existing composites as inspiration for tough, lightweight materials that could lighten vehicles. Such materials could save on fuel costs, protect airplanes, and be used in engine turbines that run more efficiently. The material that lines abalone shells, called nacre, has been of particular interest: it's lightweight and strong, yet shatter-resistant. But mimicking the microscale structures responsible for its properties has been difficult, and hasn't resulted in materials that can be manufactured on a large scale.

Now researchers in Helsinki, Finland, have developed a simple method for making large-area, nacre-like papers and coatings that could be painted on building walls and airplane skins for lightweight reinforcement. The researchers will work with the Finnish paper company UPM to commercialize the material.

"The excitement with nacre is that its properties are impressive when you consider what it's made out of: calcium carbonate and a protein," says Robert Ritchie, chair of the materials science and engineering department at the University of California, Berkeley, who is not involved with the coatings research. Nacre's combination of interconnected plates of a very hard but shatter-prone material with an infill of a very soft but ductile material results in a composite whose properties are better than the sum of its parts. By starting with better materials, such as industrial ceramics and polymers or metal, it should be possible to make a synthetic composite whose properties are even better than those of nacre.

Most efforts to mimic the nacre structure's combination of hard and soft materials have centered on structural materials that could provide a lightweight alternative to steel in building and vehicle frames and engine turbines. Steel is tough--that is, it doesn't fracture when it's stressed. Materials such as ceramics can't be used for structural applications because they're not tough. They can hold up under the stress of a great weight, but they're prone to shattering. Last year, for example, Ritchie's group made a nacre-like material that is the toughest ceramic ever made. In the form of a coating, such a strong, tough material could reinforce walls and airplane skins without adding significant weight. Previous work on making tough biomimetic coatings has stayed in the lab because these materials involved very laborious processes, such as dipping a glass slide in two solutions 1,800 times, to make thin coatings over small areas.

Technology Review has an article on a new coal to liquids process which could "allow Air Force jets to run exclusively on domestically produced biomass and coal" - Cleaner Jet Fuel from Coal.

The Air Force is testing a jet fuel made from coal and plant biomass that could replace petroleum-based fuel and emit less carbon-dioxide compared to using conventional jet fuels. The fuel is made with a process developed by Accelergy, based in Houston, using technology licensed from ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company and the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota.

Other recently tested experimental biofuels for jets have required that the aircraft still use at least 50 percent petroleum-based product to meet performance requirements, particularly for the most advanced military jets. But the Accelergy process produces fuels that closely resemble petroleum-based fuels, making it possible to do away with petroleum altogether. Because of this, the new process could help the Air Force meet its goal of using domestic, lower-carbon fuels for half of its fuel needs by 2016. Although the first products will be jet fuels, the process can also be adapted to produce gasoline and diesel.

The fuel has passed through an initial round of testing, including lab-scale engine tests, and is on track to be flight-tested in 18 months, says Rocco Fiato, vice president of business development at Accelergy.

Turning coal into liquid fuels is nothing new, but such processes have been inefficient and produced large amounts of CO2 emissions. Accelergy's approach is different because it uses "direct liquefaction," which is similar to the process used to refine petroleum. It involves treating the coal with hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst. Conventional technology for converting coal to liquid fuels breaks the coal down into synthesis gas, which is mostly carbon monoxide with a little bit of hydrogen; the hydrogen and carbon are then recombined to produce liquid hydrocarbons, a process that releases carbon dioxide. Because the Accelergy process skips the need to gasify all of the coal--which consumes a lot of energy--before recombining the hydrogen and carbon, it's more efficient and produces less carbon dioxide. "We don't destroy the molecule in coal. Instead we massage it, inject hydrogen into it, and rearrange it to form the desired hydrocarbons," says Timothy Vail, Accelergy's president and CEO.

Cleantech.com has an article on Masdar's aim to get into the biofuel for air transport market using saliconia - Masdar and Boeing’s Qatari catch-up.

Not to be upstaged by a similar announcement last week, a Masdar-led consortium today reiterated its own jet fuel from saltwater plant project, with an airline partner.

Masdar, Boeing and Honeywell’s UOP today announced details of a jet fuel from saltwater plant research project first acknowledged four months ago.

And included today was a new partner: Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. ...

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology is to lead the project, aimed at assessing the technical, commercial and environmental viability of producing large scale jet fuel and co-products from the saltwater herb salicornia.

Others are investigating salicornia for biofuel use, given the plant’s tolerance for seawater, including experimental fields in Ras al-Zawr in Saudi Arabia, Eritrea in Northeast Africa, and Sonora in Northwest Mexico aimed at the production of biodiesel.

TreeHugger is pointing to this interesting video of a solar powered plane in action - Best Video You'll See Today: Solar Plane Crossing the Alps.

Der Spiegel has an interview with Boeing's "chief environmental strategist", Billy Glover, on prospects for biofuel use in air transport (he's very optimistic, but short on detail) - Algae Could 'Supply Entire World with Aviation Fuel'.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Glover, given the current low price of oil, why would airlines still even be interested in biofuels?

Glover: Indeed, the oil price has changed rapidly. But it has done that many times before and it will continue to do so. Even today, the highest operating expense for an airline is fuel. It remains a priority to find a way to mitigate that situation. That is why Boeing is trying to open up this avenue of alternative fuel. It can help that situation while having a better environmental performance at the same time.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that, after a few test flights last year, not much has happened.

Glover: Oh no, we are moving forward very rapidly! The first test flight was in February 2008. But more recently, in December 2008 and in January 2009, there were three test flights in quick succession with a higher blend of biofuel and better performance. We have already achieved quite a bit in terms of technical understanding and technical qualification.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, these test flights seemed first and foremost to be PR stunts aimed at burnishing the airline industry's green credentials.

Glover: We have worked hard and collected quite a bit of technical data. The industry is currently preparing a technical report that is coming out in the next couple of months. That will then go into the fuel specification approval process.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How high do oil prices have to be before biofuels become economically sensible?

Glover: Affordability is always critical -- and we are not where we need to be yet. But we are at the beginning of a learning curve. The price is expected to come down in fairly short order. That is not going to be an issue in the longterm.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where are we now and where do we need to go in terms of production price?

Glover: It depends very much on the types of plants used as well as the methods for processing and delivering that into finished fuel. I do not think there is a simple way to explain a particular price and a particular time. It is all situational.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you plan to ensure that the crops needed for biofuel production do not endanger food production or contribute to deforestation?

Glover: We cannot have commercialization of biofuels unless we make sure that it is done in a sustainable fashion. We aim to firmly establish a user group of top airlines from around the world that will lay out sustainability criteria and initiate aviation-specific discussions and research. We expect that to result in a code of practice to make clear what is acceptable and what is not.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: One of the major points of concern is land use. Take, for example, jatropha, one possible source of biofuels. How many square kilometres of that plant would actually be necessary to fuel a flight over the Atlantic Ocean?

Glover: Good question, I never figured it out that way. We really do not expect that all of the world's flights will be fuelled by jatropha plants exclusively.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Than let us talk about algae. How big do these cultures need to be?

Glover: The optimists say, to supply the entire world with aviation fuel, you would perhaps need an area of the size of Belgium. We still need quite a bit of research and development work to really determine whether that is possible. So far, we are very pleasantly surprised by the innovation and the progress.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The biofuels will be blended with traditional kerosene-based jet fuel. What ratio is being planned?

Glover: The fuel specification that is being considered would allow up to a 50 percent mix. Whether one would actually be able to achieve this number with an initial commercial offering will depend very much on supply availability. But over time we actually expect it to increase to even beyond 50 percent.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you plan to make sure the different types of fuel are mixed properly and do not clog the plane's fuel lines?

Glover: The mix is done outside the plane before the fuel has entered into the fuel distribution system. At that point the blend is indistinguishable in performance characteristics from traditional jet fuel. No changes are required to the airplanes; no additional infrastructure is needed at the airports.

ired has an article on a new aviation industry initiative to reduce carbon emissions - Aviation Industry Lays Out a Decent Environmental Plan.

It's easy to dismiss with a roll of the eyes anything the aviation industry says about addressing climate change, but the industry's latest plan contains a smart mix of policy and technology changes that could help the industry clean up its act.

The 11-point plan laid out in "Aviation and Climate Change: The Views of Aviation Industry Stakeholders" (.pdf) was developed by some of the industry's leading trade groups and addresses everything from general aviation and commercial carriers to aircraft manufacturers. It outlines a broad principles for the industry and policymakers to adhere to as they grapple with climate change, and makes it clear the industry wants to be more involved in the discussion -- and solution.

"President Obama has called for cap-and-trade legislation and that sends shudders down the spine of airlines in the U.S.," Christ Surgenor of Green Air Online told Wired.com. "This manifesto seems to be a proactive attempt to be involved in the growing climate change debate taking place with the new administration and ahead of attempts of attempts to include aviation emissions in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December."

Some of the proposals are typical aviation industry boilerplate. Advocating for a "comprehensive energy policy" is great, but the last time the industry tossed that term around it was talking about releasing fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and punishing energy speculators. Not exactly progressive policies. And the plan's insistence on a “cost-benefit analysis” where “potential benefits of regulation should be weighed against the cost to the economy, jobs, communities, and the transportation system” sounds like a convenient way of associating increased regulation with job losses.

But some of the ideas look good. Air traffic control system modernization is an expensive proposition, but among its many benefits are the cuts in emissions that follow reductions in the time planes spend circling busy airports. There's also no downside to increased and accelerated adoption of operational efficiencies like continuous descent approach, which reduces fuel consumption. The industry even seems amenable to greater scrutiny, saying it "supports more research on the effects of other non-carbon GHGs (green house gasses) in aviation." Perhaps most surprising, though, the plan suggests the aviation industry is prepared to pay for its pollution. Rather than dismiss plans like Europe’s carbon trading scheme out of hand, it asks only that revenues generated by such programs "be reinvested into initiatives that reduce aviation’s GHG emissions." ...

The manifesto has its share of rehashed bullet points, but on the whole its a significant step forward and reason to believe aviation's commitment to environmental issues is real -- and will continue moving forward.

Energy Bulletin has a report on oil prices and the airline industry from "Annals of Air and Space Law" by Charles Schlumberger, Principal Air Transport Specialist of the World Bank - The 2008 oil price spike and the airline industry.

In July 2008, the price of crude oil reached an historical high level of US$147 per barrel. However, as a consequence of falling demand over the following six months, the price declined by well over 60%. This article examines the causes behind the oil price spike, which has become a serious commercial threat to many airlines. While speculative forces may have been the primary driver, increased demand by emerging markets, decreasing inventories, as well as tight production played a significant role in this development.

The article subsequently expands its scope, and evaluates two of the possible future challenges in global oil production. The first concerns a peak in production due to inadequate past investments in upstream infrastructure. The second, a peak in global supply, is based on the fact that most oil producing countries have already reached their peak output and are in a permanent decline. Both scenarios would undoubtedly lead to very high fuel prices and they present a major risk to an industry in which there are presently no substitutes for fossil fuel based energy.

By outlining data concerning global oil production and the expected growth in demand, and by demonstrating that current reserves and future increases in production are based on many uncertain factors, the article concludes that the airline industry must address the issue of energy security in the interest of its own future. The article suggests that the industry should support and adopt measures to mitigate CO2 emissions, which would also lead to a reduction in oil consumption, given the increased political pressure and public awareness with regard to climate change.

... V. CONCLUSION
It has not been the objective of this article to predict if and when global oil production might reach a temporary or permanent peak but rather to outline critical aspects of global energy supply, especially the outlook of production and supply of fossil fuel based products, which are critical to the aviation sector.

The most significant conclusion of the foregoing is that there is a real possibility that global oil production and supply might indeed reach an untimely peak. Such a peak would be devastating, especially for aviation. Timely mitigation measures, namely reducing consumption and shifting to other sources of energy, could reduce the impact. However, initiatives proposed so far have not been implemented, and the current economic slowdown coupled with the fall of the price of oil has shifted the focus away to currently more pressing challenges.

Nevertheless, public sensitivity about climate change and global warming presents an excellent opportunity and platform to address some of the necessary mitigation steps. In applying the principles of good airmanship, the airline industry could seize this opportunity and become an active advocate of both oil and climate-change issues. This would not only restore the industry's reputation as an environmentally conscious player but would also extinguish a potential threat.

World oil production has stagnated since 2005, despite record high oil prices, oil industry profits and investment in exploration and production. There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that world oil production is at or near its historic peak and will most likely begin to decline within several years. Net exports of oil available on the world market have already commenced a terminal decline. It is likely that the decline rate for oil exports will be greater than production declines. Australia is already highly import dependent and will be increasingly so as domestic oil production continues to decline after peaking in 2000. This leaves Australia vulnerable to the impact of geopolitical circumstances, extreme weather events and other economic trends on world oil markets. The decline in oil availability will see dramatically increasing and highly volatile oil and fuel prices, oil supply shocks and impacts on economic growth, employment, demographics and transport patterns.

Steep increases in oil prices since 2005 have had an economic impact similar to the 1970s oil shocks, including reduced demand for road and air transport and negative economic growth. Given that world oil production is peaking, the global recession is perpetuating a ‘bumpy plateau’ cycle of oil price increases, recessions and temporary economic recoveries, which will hinder the world economy for the foreseeable future.

Aviation is totally dependent upon petroleum fuels, with no viable replacement likely to be developed for the foreseeable future. As world oil production peaks, so to will the availability of aviation fuel. Increases in fuel efficiency will be insufficient to allow the continued growth in demand for air travel. With no viable alternative fuels that can be produced in anywhere near the volume required this will lead to a decline in air travel. This coupled with falling demand as a result of the socioeconomic impacts of peak oil lead to the conclusion that peak oil will also mean ‘peak aviation.’

The Aviation Green Paper forecasts perpetual growth in aviation demand for the foreseeable future. This is based on a number of assumptions, both stated and unstated, that are being invalidated by current events. With no mention of peak oil, or how its impacts will be mitigated, this leads to the unfortunate circumstance where the National Aviation Policy is likely to exacerbate the impact of peak oil on the aviation industry while avoiding the need to develop alternative transport modes such as high speed rail. This will likely leave Australians in the unfortunate situation of having a failing aviation industry with insufficient alternative transportation infrastructure. This situation is however avoidable if peak oil mitigation measures are implemented on a sufficient scale in an urgent manner.

Based on a detailed analysis of the likely impact of peak oil on Australia’s domestic aviation demand, it is likely that over coming decades there will be significant declines in air travel. Three plausible scenarios are depicted in the following chart:

TG Daily reports that biofuel test flights are all the rage lately - Biofuel test flights by airlines increasing.

The most recent airlines involved in this biofuel testing, said the U.S. Department of Energy, included Air New Zealand, Continental Airlines and Japan Airlines. These three followed in the wake of a biofuel test early last year by Virgin Atlantic, which got a Boeing 747-400 from London to Amsterdam in about 40 minutes on a mix of Babassu and coconut oils. That particular flight reached an altitude of 25,000 feet.

The Air New Zealand flight, conducted December 30, was a two hour test run out of Auckland, using a biofuel blend of 50:50 jatropha and Jet A1 fuel to power one of the plane's engines. Continental's biofuel test, done on January 7, worked off of one engine as well and was run out of Houston. The biofuel blend for that flight, mixed 50:50 with regular jet fuel, included components derived from algae and jatropha plants.

As for the Japan Airlines flight, conducted on January 30, it too did a straight down the middle blend of regular jet fuel and biofuel. It was flown of out Tokyo for an hour-and-a-half, with the biofuel mixture consisting of amelina (84%), jatropha (under 16%), and algae (under 1%). No passengers were carried on any of these flights, which did a number of tests on systems to determine effectiveness of the fuel mixes. Boeing, among others, was involved in most of the tests.

Camelina, grown for 3,000 years primarily to produce vegetable oil and animal feed, is suddenly a very popular plant. The relatively low cost to convert it into fuel could make it competitive with gasoline and diesel. with fewer harmful emissions. And it’s rich in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants, which could make it attractive as a food oil. Growers from Montana to the plains of Canada are planting the crop.

JAL used a 50/50 of the biofuel and traditional aviation fuel in the aircraft’s No. 3 engine, without having to make any modifications to the engine, the airline said. The plane flew without cargo or passengers. Analysts from JAL, Boeing and Pratt and Whitney, which made the jet’s engines, will now pour over data to analyze the fuel’s performance. That process could take several weeks, the companies said. The pilot reported a smooth flight with no problems. ...

Boeing Japan President Nicole Piasecki said airlines could be flying revenue-producing flights with biodiesel in three to five years. In that time, Tom Todaro, chief executive of Sustainable Oils Inc., which supplied the camelina used in the test flight fuel, said there could be as much as 200 million gallons of camelina-based fuel being produced annually.

The FT has a report on the massive decline in air freight volumes - Airlines report ‘shocking’ plunge in traffic. So far recession seems to have had a much bigger impact on a lot of vulnerable industries than high oil prices did.

The airline industry reported on Thursday an “unprecedented and shocking” plunge in global air cargo traffic.

Air freight accounts for 35 per cent of the value of goods traded internationally and the International Air Transport Association said traffic volumes had fallen by 22.6 per cent year-on-year in December.

Giovanni Bisignani, Iata director general, said, “there is no clearer description of the slowdown in world trade. Even in September 2001 (after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US), when much of the global fleet was grounded, the decline was only 13.9 per cent.”

International passenger traffic fell in December by 4.6 per cent. Iata said the drop was less dramatic than in cargo, as volumes had been supported by year-end leisure travel that had been booked in advance.

Bloomberg reports that there has been another successful test flight using a mix of jatropha and algae derived biofuels - Algae-Powered Jet Proves Biofuel in Continental Test.

Continental Airlines Inc. conducted a demonstration flight today using biofuel, the first such test in the U.S. with a commercial jet, as the industry experiments with ways to curb pollution that leads to global warming. A fuel blend made from algae and jatropha scrub plants powered the unmodified twin-engine Boeing Co. 737-800, Continental said. The flight, which took off without incident about 12:15 p.m. Houston time at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, lasted about 90 minutes. ...

The test by Houston-based Continental, the fourth-largest U.S. airline, is a step toward the International Air Transport Association’s goal of having member carriers use 10 percent alternative fuels by 2017 to reduce global warming. The European Union will cap airline carbon-dioxide emissions beginning in 2012.

AP reports that Air NZ has successfully trialled flying a 747 using a 50% mix of jatropha oil - NZ airline flies jetliner partly run on veggie oil.

A passenger jet powered in part by vegetable oil successfully completed a two-hour flight Tuesday to test a biofuel that could lower airplane emissions and cut costs, Air New Zealand said. One engine of a Boeing 747-400 airplane was powered by a 50-50 blend of oil from jatropha plants and standard A1 jet fuel.

This year has seen an unprecedented push for alternative fuels by airlines, which were slammed by skyrocketing oil prices earlier in 2008 and are now bracing for a falloff in air travel in the face of a global economic slowdown.

While Air New Zealand couldn't say whether the blend would be cheaper than standard jet fuel since jatropha is not yet produced on a commercial scale, the company expects the blend to be "cost competitive," according to company spokeswoman Tracy Mills.

Biofuels were once regarded as impractical for aviation because most freeze at the low temperatures encountered at cruising altitudes. But tests show jatropha, whose seeds yield an oil already used to produce fuels like biodiesel, has an even lower freezing point than jet fuel.

Air New Zealand Chief Executive Rob Fyfe called the flight "a milestone for the airline and commercial aviation." "Today we stand at the earliest stages of sustainable fuel development and an important moment in aviation history," he said shortly after the flight. The company's goal is to become the world's most environmentally sustainable airline.

The flight was the first to use jatropha as part of a biofuel mix.

In February, Boeing and Virgin Atlantic carried out a similar test flight that included a biofuel mixture of palm and coconut oil — but was dismissed as a publicity stunt by environmentalists who said the fuel could not be produced in the quantities needed for commercial aviation use.

Biofuels emit as much carbon as kerosene-based jet fuel, but jatropha — a Mexican plant that grows in warm climates — absorbs about half the carbon that jatropha-based fuels release. Air New Zealand's proposed blend, for example, would mean a one-quarter reduction in the carbon footprint of standard jet fuel.

Many biofuels — like ethanol, which is produced from corn — have been blamed for raising the price of food by diverting it from kitchen tables to engines. While the link between biofuels and grain prices is debatable, Mills said that jatropha plants would not compete with food or other commercial crops since it can grow on land that would make poor farmland and needs little water.

"Ethanol is a first generation biofuel; jatropha a second generation biofuel that doesn't compete for land with food production," Mills said.

The test flight out of Auckland International Airport included a full-power takeoff and cruising to 35,000 feet (10,600 meters), where the crew manually set all four engine controls to check for identical performance readings among the biofuel-powered engine and those using jet fuel. Pilots also switched off the fuel pump for the biofuel engine at 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) "to test the lubricity of the fuel," ensuring its friction in the pipe did not slow its flow to the engine.

The Australian reports that Air New Zealand will soon trial a fuel mix using 50% biofuel from jatropha plants - Oil from wasteland tree to power Air NZ jet.

A BIOFUEL due to be used in a world-first Air New Zealand flight test next month may give aircraft an energy boost and reduce their environmental footprint.

Tests by engine-maker Rolls Royce show the 50/50 blend of Jet A1 and fuel converted from jatropha plant oil met or exceeded all critical criteria, including a freeze point of -47C and flash point of 38C. But it also has a higher energy content and lower specific gravity than the Jet A1 fuel available in most countries and the Jet A fuel airlines buy in the US.

Rolls-Royce, which tested the fuel at facilities in Britain, said the blend met or exceeded technical requirements for civil and military aircraft as well as the requirements of a "drop-in" fuel whose properties were virtually indistinguishable from conventional fuel. This means it can be put straight into today's jet engines without the need to make expensive modifications.

Air NZ chief pilot David Morgan said the ability to mix the biofuel with normal fuel was important because airlines may not be able to get the new type in all ports. He expected airlines to be able to use anything from 100 per cent biofuel to various levels of blends.

He also expected to see a reduced fuel burn per nautical mile because of the higher energy content in the new is fuel. He noted that Qantas and Air NZ flights buying the less energy-rich Jet A in the US loaded a 0.2 to 0.3 of a per cent extra because it had less calorific value. This meant, all things being equal, that airlines used more fuel coming out of the US than in travelling there. "So the high calorific value and low specific gravity is a win-win," he said.

Mr Morgan said the aviation industry consortium involved in the test had opted for a blend was because of the biofuel's lower specific gravity. "For the purpose of the test we need to bring it close to normal jet fuel specific gravity because one of the purposes of this test is to prove the efficacy and viability of biofuel in the normal system," he said.

Air NZ will test the blend in various operating conditions in one of the four RB211 on the 747 during a two-hour flight on December 3 and Mr Morgan doe not anticipate any surprises.