“Fix it now!”: More Sustainable Airports

Post 1 of a 3 part special series - We can fix it now!

The past several posts – ( here and here and here ) have focused on the climate, food, water and land use problems which collectively face us. There is no getting around it - with a world population now just over 7 billion, the situation is getting bad now… one shutters to think what things will be like on a shared planet of some 9.3 billion by 2050

Therefore, it is necessary to make clear how important it is to begin implementing available solutions now.

Solutions to our energy and environmental challenges abound; and real action comes down to using what we have more wisely, and generating energy in such a manner that our kids have a nice place to raise their kids.

As much as this blog loves rockets, making things better, sooner, is not rocket science.

FIX DAY 1 – Airports

Advances in Fuel sipping planes are here, and even more efficient planes are coming

For more on this- look at the coming designs for  The Boeing SUGAR Volt, Lockheed Martin Box Wing Jet – near term concepts each currently being designed and /or tested.

(Work-Bench.Org will cover advanced aeronautics and fuel saving technologies in a coming post).

For this post, the focus is more on ground support and logistics. What can we do, now, (outside some fantastical new plane design) to make the process of  flying less carbon intensive?

As we plan to reduce the C02 emissions associated with running a large metropolitan airport, can we also work to clean up the Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxide and groundwater contamination near the airport itself?

The Airport is an significant engine of growth for any metropolitan area- Let’s look at how some cities are tuning up that engine and making it work better for their respective communities:

Our first example is in Seattle, Washington-  It recently addressed its rental car facility and transport waste by consolidating all rental agencies into one clean and close by facility. A fleet of 29 modern Natural Gas powered buses wisk passengers to a consolidated rental facility, where water is recycled from each car wash, gas is pumped cleanly, and less energy is used throughout, as the entire  facility is rated LEED silver.

At Chicago’s busy O’Hare Airport, changes are coming, and coming quickly:  In late October, 2011, The Chicago Department of Aviation announcedit will pursue the development of a massive solar panel installation, (up to 60 acres!) of ground-mounted solar panels Also, the CDA revealed it will also launch a composting program for 13 restaurants at Midway International Airport.  ”Finally, the CDA is also inviting developers to construct and operate a fueling station that will supply multiple alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas, biodiesel, ethanol, and electric vehicle charging to commercial and private vehicles at and around O’Hare”

Detroit’s Wayne Airport – efficient new departure terminal.

In Detroit, the New Wayne Airport features an innovative system to service each airplane with fuel, climate control and auxiliary electricity right from the gate, in turn eliminating costly and polluting diesel-powered ground units. Over the 40 year lifespan of the system, it will save the airport 418 tons of carbon monoxide, 409 tons of ozone precursors, 366 tons of nitrogen oxides, 66 tons of sulfur dioxide, 42 tons of volatile organic compounds, and 6.4 tons of particulate matter.

Also, the airport features extensive daylighting, as well as LED lights for runways and (soon) terminal use. Finally, the airport features ultra water saving restroom fixtures, aircraft wash water reduction, and ground water management.

At Canada’s Edmonton International Aerodrome, engineers specified a unique waste heat recovery system which goes by the trade name “Sofame” The energy savings have brought down Greenhouse Gas Emissions by some 1000 tons of carbon dioxide / year, (which is what 200 vehicles produce per year). The general heating efficiency (boilers and direct contact waste heat recovery system) is approximately 90%.  A Sofame installation is also reducing energy costs (and emissions!) at the Montréal Airport.

Miami International Airport was able to affordably implement energy and resource efficiency via a performance contract. Under this sort of arrangement,  the contractor arranges financing and the capital costs are more than paid for through the energy savings. Through the innovative financing mechanism, some 9,000 mercury vapor lights were replaced with pleasing RT5 units, HVAC was upgraded, and occupancy sensors were installed to reduce cooling loads. An older chiller unit was replaced with a smaller, more efficient unit, with pumps which feature variable drive. The key: Instead of pumping at 100%, the variable drive units are modulated and change performance/speed based on the cooling need of a given area of the airport.  To add even more facility efficiency, low flow water fixtures and irrigation controls were introduced.

San Diego LEED Silver Airport Expansion

San Diego’s Terminal 2 West project, as well as being built upon a brownfield (specifically, a dormant landfill),  will feature a design which will allow the structure to use less energy and water. It will also utilize energy from alternative sources. The project will seek LEED Silver certification at completion.

In Hyannis, the renovated Barnstable Municipal Airport will cut greenhouse gas emissions through the use of white roofs to reduce solar heat, adding high-performance window glazing, and specifying energy-efficient heating and air conditioning systems and interior fluorescent lighting. The airport also uses dark-sky exterior lighting and has promoted the use of public transportation and bicycling. As a result of these efforts, Barnstable Municipal Airport has been awarded incentive funds from the local utility

Coming soon, even more facility savings will be possible: A relatively new energy-saving technology focuses on the air filtration system. Traditionally, airports have relied on a three-stage air filtration system using a pre-filter and a final filter for airborne dust removal, and a carbon filter for aircraft exhaust odor removal. While the dust filters are still required, a relatively new technology, known as PCO, is being substituted for the carbon filtration system. The PCO system has almost no pressure drop associated with it. This lower pressure drop results in a lower fan horse-power requirement to move the conditioned air, and thereby reduces energy costs.

We must also address issues of emissions from the support vehicles on the tarmac. The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $2.5 million this year to demonstrate and to deploy fuel-cell-electric baggage tow tractors (BTT) at major US commercial airports. This program is in addition to the existing zero-emission electric aircraft and baggage tugs which are each slowly making their way to the airport  fleets.

No discussion of airport emissions reduction would be complete without considering travel to and from these important facilities. No matter what one does to improve things inside the airport, The “one car, one drop off” paradigm has to be changed. Managing the rental shuttle bus pollution in Seattle is certainly a good start, but we need to get passengers to and from the airport in a more sustainable manner. The Federal Transit Administration has begun planning along these lines. In this document,  the government notes that in Europe, transport to the Airport is far more green, with significantly more trips to and from airports  made by rail. In Paris and Frankfurt, very High Speed regional rail lines have been placed directly adjacent to  airport terminals

As an example of airport access improvements that are possible in the United States,  Washington’ D.C.’s National Airport has the largest air passenger market share for rail of any airport in the US. Construction of the Metrorail station at the airport in the 1970s led to one of the largest increases in public transportation share ever recorded, from 2.5 percent (bus) before the new service to 16 percent (rail and bus) after the opening of the new station”. 

We can do better on this - Rail’s market share to the airport is quite high in places like Washington, Chicago and Atlanta, but relatively low in places such as Philadelphia, Cleveland and Baltimore.

In Los Angeles, the transportation authority has produced a video highlighting the woes of getting to the airport without a well planned rail link.

To sum up:  It’s clear that given the examples above, making airports more efficient, from the tarmac to the taxi, is neither prohibitively expensive, nor technically unwieldy. We posit that by using affordable, available, off the shelf technologies and approaches, regional airport retrofits can be a significant source of carbon and smog reduction. Such  redesigns will better protect the environment, while lowering the cost of doing business for airlines, local governments, and airport authorities.

Image Credit: alphaspirit/Shutterstock