Researchers say preliminary results suggest contrails can warm the atmosphere - maybe above and beyond airplane's carbon emissions.
(Photo courtesy of NOAA)
It’s the tail end of the holiday
air travel season, and, if you’re
flying, you might not be thinking
about your impact on climate
change. But Shawn Allee reports, some scientists are:
Transcript
It’s the tail end of the holiday
air travel season, and, if you’re
flying, you might not be thinking
about your impact on climate
change. But Shawn Allee reports, some scientists are:
Mark Jacobson studies atmospheric science at Stanford University.
He’s just finished research on airplane emissions, including contrails. Those’re the streaming vapor clouds you see coming out of high-flying airplanes.
Jacobson wants to see if contrails contribute to global warming.
“And we’re trying to find out what’s the relative contribution of aircraft to that warming.”
Jacobson says preliminary results suggest contrails can warm the atmosphere – maybe above and beyond airplane’s carbon emissions.
He says his upcoming paper will likely stir a lot of debate next year, since flying’s becoming more common and there hasn’t been much research on its impact yet.
Airlines say that there needs to be more regulation on oil speculators. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Recent swings in the price of
crude oil are leading to more
trouble for the US airline
industry. Rebecca Williams
reports:
Transcript
Recent swings in the price of
crude oil are leading to more
trouble for the US airline
industry. Rebecca Williams
reports:
Even though oil futures are trading for half of what they were last summer, the airlines are not happy.
David Castelveter is with the Air Transport Association. He says wild price swings for oil make it tough for the industry to plan ahead.
“They hedge their fuel purchases when the price is high at a lower rate and if the price of fuel goes low then they’re hedged in at higher rates and it costs them money.”
Airlines would like to raise ticket prices, but, with the recession, they’re worried no one will buy them.
So instead, they’re trying to cut back on how much fuel they use. Airlines are retrofitting planes with winglets that cut fuel consumption.
But that takes money and time. So in the meantime, they’re also cutting jobs and routes.
The industry’s putting pressure on Congress to force more transparency in the oil futures trading market.
They’re hoping more regulation on oil speculators would mean fewer price swings.
The EPA has found that some of the water served on airplanes is contaminated, and are advising people to be cautious. (Photo by Lester Graham)
New data suggest you might want to think twice before drinking coffee or tea on an airplane. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley explains why:
Transcript
New data suggest you might want to think twice before
drinking coffee or tea on an airplane. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Christina Shockley explains why:
The water on airplanes is tested by the Environmental Protection Agency. Recently, researchers found water that contained coliform bacteria on about one in six of the planes they tested.
The bacteria is usually harmless, but can signal the presence of other, more dangerous organisms.
Cynthia Bergman is with the EPA. She says there’s no need to panic, but concerned passengers should choose other options on board.
“Canned or bottled beverages or bring bottled water onto the flight, and they shouldn’t be shy about asking the flight attendant if the water used for the coffee or tea was made with bottled water, or if it was brought to a boil.”
Bergman says the EPA has not seen any major outbreaks of illness from airplane water. She says symptoms could include nausea and stomach pains. Researchers don’t know yet where the bacteria is coming from, but twelve major airlines have agreed to test the water and disinfect their planes more frequently.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.
Each winter, airports around the country use more than 30 million
gallons of deicing fluid. The gooey substance prevents ice and snow from
building on a plane’s wings. However, the fluid can also seep into the
ground and pollute groundwater. It’s a costly problem for airports. But
now, one has found a unique solution. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
Each winter, airports around the country use more than 30 million gallons of deicing fluid. The
gooey substance prevents ice and snow from building up on a plane’s wings. However, the fluid can
also seep into the ground and pollute groundwater. It’s a costly problem for airports. But now, one
has found a unique solution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
(sound of plane)
It’s a cold, overcast day in Albany, New York as a passenger plane lifts off the runway. It’s one
of the hundred or so planes that take off from here every day. At this time of year, they’ll all
have to be deiced. Steve Lachetta is the Albany airport’s planner and environmental manager.
“We’re in the Hudson River basin and our winter season extends for over 214 days, from early
October through late April or early May. Albany, being a typical small hub, uses 100 thousand
gallons of PG per year.”
PG is propylene glycol, the main ingredient in deicing fluid that makes it gooey. Any time the
temperature dips below 40 degrees, airports are required by the FCC to use PG. The problem is,
propylene glycol also seeps into the ground.
And in Albany’s case, it started showing up in the nearby Mohawk River – a local source for
drinking water. So, Albany became the first airport in the country to receive a state mandate to
clean up its deicing fluid.
“We were spending one million dollars to dispose of our winter storm water after collection. So we
tried every form of recycling the fluid, trucking it off airport. And we took a common sense
approach to cost control and became very interested in establishing biological treatment.”
In other words, Lachetta turned to microorganisms for help. He added bacteria to the dirty storm
water. And found they started digesting the propylene glycol. The bacteria broke it down into
acidic acid and then carbon dioxide and methane. The process gives the microorganisms fuel to grow.
“The manufacturers refer to propylene glycol as the filling of the Oreo cookie of the microbe world
and very readily digested so we did much experimentation and found total removal. Byproducts are 85
percent pure methane and 15 percent carbon dioxide.”
(sound inside treatment plant)
That pure methane is put to use here – providing heat for the airport’s storm water treatment
plant. It looks like something out of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The room is filled
with a jumble of brightly colored pipes. There’s deep purple, vibrant green and canary yellow. Each
one has a special purpose.
“The large blue pipes are cycling 22 gallons per minute through the large vessels outside standing
35 feet high, 14 feet wide, and the brown pipes are the dirty storm water directly off the aircraft
aprons and the light blue pipes are for the clean water.”
Those pipes run to and from a pair of giant mixing vats. They stir up a brew of dirty storm water,
microorganisms, and some extra nutrients. It’s all cooked at a temperature of 85 degrees. And the
result is clean water.
Shelly Zuskin-Barish is the project manager for the EPA’s Airport Deicing Operations Study. She
says Albany has the most stringent treatment program in the country.
“I was very impressed when reviewing their treatment system. We found they were getting very good
removal in terms of not only propylene glycol but also an additive called tolyltriazole.”
Zuskin-Barish says there’s growing concern about tolytriazole because of its impact on aquatic
life. This is the first system she’s seen that removes it. As for propylene glycol, most airports
use a combination of recycling it and trucking it off site. Albany’s system removes more of the
pollutants, and it’s cheaper. Zuskin-Barish says Albany is on the cutting edge because it had to
be.
Albany airport has a local limit through their own state of 1 part per million propylene glycol.
For the different airports we’ve seen, that’s a very tight limit and I think in large part, pushed
them to go to this technology, which is helping them achieve those levels on a daily basis.
But now, other states – and countries – are starting to crack down as well. And Albany’s Steve
Iachetta is getting lots of visitors.
“We’ve been visited by Tokyo International, some European airports, the Department of Defense, much
larger airports, Denver, Nashville, other hubs that have come to see our early pioneering efforts.
It’s great to be on the leading edge. It’s nice to know we can contribute to improving the
environment.”
Right now, airport pollution controls differ from state to state. But next winter, the EPA will
consider national regulations to govern the disposal of deicing fluid. That may bring even more
visitors to Albany – to find out how a small airport ended up with the country’s most innovative
system.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Albany, New York.
Researchers say preliminary results suggest contrails can warm the atmosphere - maybe above and beyond airplane's carbon emissions. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
