SaveFuel-SaveMoney

U.S. Airlines have ordered their pilots to slow down to reduce fuel consumption.They say the move will add minutes to flight times whilst, at the same time, save millions in fuel costs.

However, the strategy will not be taken up by the large British airlines, even though the price of jet fuel has shot up by more than 70 per cent in the past year.

Both British Airways and Virgin said they have already introduced fuel-saving measures which they believe are more effective than those adopted by their American counterparts.

Insisting that reducing speed saves fuel in certain speed ranges, the U.S. operators are introducing slower cruising speeds on both domestic flights and long-haul routes to Britain and Europe.Northwest Airlines, which is in merger talks with rival Delta to become the world’s biggest carrier, said it saved 162 gallons of fuel on a Paris to Minneapolis flight recently when the pilot cut his average speed from 542mph to 532mph. The speed reduction only added eight minutes to the flight time but saved the airline nearly £300 ($600).
Northwest number crunchers calculate that by slowing down just slightly they will save £300,000 this year alone just on the route between Los Angeles and Hawaii.

Another U.S. airline, Southwest, estimates it will save £21million this year by adding one to three minutes to each flight.

Budget airline jetBlue said it would save nearly £8million.

United Airlines recently followed B.A’s tactic by installing similar flight-planning software, which it believes will save £10million a year. BA’s software shows pilots the best altitude and speed to allow optimum use of fuel. Experts said most passengers would not notice the slightly longer times.Virgin’s Paul Charles said: “We believe our fuel-saving measures are better than the Americans.” Virgin is concentrating on reducing the weight of planes by using light carbon-fibre fittings. “We will save many millions of pounds more with our weightwatchers programme than the Americans can save by slowing down,” said Mr Charles. American carriers are struggling with older, less efficient fleets than British companies, he added.

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Turboprop Aircraft Are Back In Fashion

With oil around $120 a barrel and climbing it seems that only new technology will be able to keep us flying at a price we can afford.

Not so! say some bigwigs in the aircraft industry. And they are backing their claims by ordering more old fashioned aircraft with propellors.

In the “less than 70 seat” market turboprops - which were once thought of as noisy and bumpy - are outselling equivalent regional jets by two to one.

According to Kapil Kaul, of the Centre For Asia Pacific Aviation, “Propellor driven planes achieve massive fuel saving benefits on shorter journeys.” “For a trip of less than 600 nautical miles, or about 90 minutes flying time, a turboprop may use as much as 70% less fuel than a similar sized jet,” he said.

According to the environmentalist website Treehugger.com, travelling on one of the most advanced turboprop aircraft, such as the Bombardier Q400, can be more environmentally friendly than going by car (but not as green as the train). The British airline Flybe, which has a fleet of Q400’s makes this very point in it’s marketing material.

There are even suggestions that turboprops are the new chic in air travel. Porter Air, the Canadian carrier flies Q400’s on a number of routes. They have interiors designed by Winkreative, the agency set up by Tyler Brule, the founder of Wallpaper magazine.

Environmental and fashion considerations aside, it is the 60% increase in aviation fuel costs that have caused airlines to think again. This increase has bumped up fuel as a percentage of running costs from 15% to 33%.

One of the main beneficiaries of this resurgence has been ATR, a joint venture between the European aerospace giant, EADS, and Alenia Aeronautica, which is enjoying a sales boom as it’s products come back into vogue.

John Moore of ATR said,” There’s nothing on the horizon in terms of technology that looks like it will beat turboprop in terms of efficiency in the near term. And we’ve made them more comfortable for passengers.”

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I would like to apologise to all readers and fans of this blog for the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks, during which time I’ve not been too well. Normal service will, hopefully, now be resumed.

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The average two-car family in the UK will spend more than £400 extra on petrol (gas) this year as fuel prices hit record levels, figures show.

Soaring petrol (gas) and diesel prices have increased the total cost of running a small family car to 58p a mile, from 55.3p a year ago, according to the AA.

UK pump prices will certainly continue rising to record levels in the spring following the price of oil hitting a series of highs since the beginning of the year.

Two-car families are now £36.93 worse off every month than they were a year ago, based on the average distance travelled in a mid-sized, petrol-fuelled vehicle, according to the AA .

They will pay £443.16 more this year just to fill their tanks, even before higher insurance premiums and a bunch of new motoring costs in Alastair Darling’s recent Budget are taken into account.

Average prices for unleaded fuel have shot up to 106.76p a litre, an increase of 17.23p in a year. It now costs £8.62 extra to fill up a typical 50-litre petrol tank.

Petrol prices are currently highest in London at 107.6p and cheapest in Yorkshire and Humberside at 106.7p. There are local variations with some garages charging 110p.

A few weeks ago, petrol hit the landmark price of £5 a gallon on British motorways with the M40 Cherwell Valley service area charging 110.9p a litre.

Experts expect rises of at least another 3p a litre over the next few months as recent oil price highs filter through and have warned that the £5 gallon may become the norm by the summer.

Consumer spending power is already being depleted by more than £11 million a day by the increased cost of petrol, compared with last year.

Motorists were the biggest losers in the recent Budget with the Chancellor signalling above-inflation petrol tax increases in future. This is all in the name greening the UK.

He also unveiled a £735 million tax increase on large family cars and resurrected speculation that the Government is preparing to introduce a national road-pricing scheme which could see drivers paying £1 a mile to use their cars during peak times.

Over the past two years, the soaring price of oil has allowed the Treasury to rake in £5 billion more than expected with windfalls from fuel duty and taxes on North Sea oil, according to analysts but the greedy, spendthrift government wants even more..

Hugh Blaydon, from the Association of British Drivers, said: “The more money people have to spend on fuel the less money they have to spend on anything else.

“It’s not just luxuries, people will have to cut back on everyday necessities. Most people drive not for the fun of it but because they have to, so they are going to have to pay these increased costs. It’s outrageous.”

Drivers of diesel-powered vehicles are suffering from even faster rises than those hitting petrol-driven car owners.

The average price of diesel in Britain is now a record 114.25p a litre, up nearly 5p in a month.

A litre of diesel is 7.5p more expensive than petrol.

Wales has the highest priced diesel at 115.1p while the cheapest is in north-west England at 113.6p.

Diesel cars, which give better fuel economy than petrol, accounted for 40.2 per cent of the 2.4 million new cars sold in Britain last year, compared to 13.8 per cent in 1999.

A diesel car costs on average £1,400 more than its petrol equivalent and it usually takes more than 45,000 miles before the savings from greater fuel efficiency recoup the extra purchase cost.

Edmund King, the president of the AA, said: “The dash for diesel continues in the UK, with motorists primarily trying to reduce their fuel costs but with the added benefit of reduced CO\u2082 emissions.

“However, diesel is more expensive than petrol and the differential is growing.

“For many low-mileage drivers, buying a diesel is a false economy”

If this is the case, then why aren’t more motorists switching to LPG? LPG conversions cost, on average, slightly less than a diesel alternative but the fuel is about half the cost – and a lot cleaner.

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According to an article by James Randerson and Nicholas Watt which has been published in the UK Guardian newspaper, Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, is preparing to do battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the UK government’s leading scientists warned they could exacerbate the problem of climate change rather than help to beat it it.

In an damning attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol (gasoline) and diesel before their effects on climate change had been properly assessed.

“If one started to use biofuels … and in reality that policy led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease, that would obviously be insane,” Watson said. “It would certainly be a perverse outcome.”

Under the EU Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, all petrol and diesel must contain 2.5% of biofuels from April 1. This is designed to ensure that Britain (and all other EU countries) complies with a 2003 EU directive that 5.75% of petrol and diesel come from renewable sources by 2010.

But scientists have for some time increasingly questioned the sustainability of some biofuels, warning that by increasing deforestation the energy source may be contributing to global warming, not reducing it..

Professor Watson’s warning has been supported by Professor Sir David King, who recently retired as the UK government’s chief scientific adviser. He said biofuel quotas should not proceed until the results were known of a review which has been commissioned by the UK government.

“What is absolutely desperately needed within government are people of integrity (they’ll take some finding – xlcr) who will state what the science advice is under whatever political pressure or circumstances,” he said.

The EU plans to raise the compulsory biofuel quota to 10% by 2020, but Gordon Brown is understood to be ready to challenge this plan. A senior UK government source said: “There is a growing feeling that we need to get all the facts. Some biofuels are OK but there are serious questions about others. More work needs to be done.”

Sources say the government has no choice but to implement the guidelines next month because Britain is obliged under EU law to comply with the 2010 target.

But the report on biofuels, to come from the head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, Professor Ed Gallagher, may be used to challenge the more ambitious target for 2020, which is not set in law.

The UK government’s current chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, is already dubious about biofuels. At a speech in Westminster recently he said demand for biofuels from the US had delivered a “major shock” to world agriculture, which was raising food prices globally. “There are real problems with the unsustainability of biofuels,” he said, adding that cutting down rainforest to grow the crops was “profoundly stupid”
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Britain will move cautiously in its battle with Brussels because José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, is supporting the 10% target for 2020. Barroso this month dismissed as “exaggerated” claims that biofuels can lead to increases in food prices and greenhouse gas emissions due to deforestation. But other members of the commission and other countries, including Germany, sympathise with Britain.

Brown was due to release a report touching on issues including biofuels, when he met Barroso in Brussels recently. But the Prime Minister decided that the time was “not right or ripe”.

The Prime Minister made clear that Britain is wary of the target when he said last November: “I take extremely seriously concerns about the impact of biofuels on deforestation, precious habitats and on food security, and the UK is working to ensure a European sustainability standard is introduced as soon as possible, and we will not support an increase in biofuels over current target levels until an effective standard is in place.”

It remains to be seen whether Britain is bullied by the EU into accepting higher quotas or not. Unfortunately, we no longer seem to have a Margaret Thatcheresque character in government who is prepared to stand up to the EU. We have to be careful that we don’t lurch from an oil crisis to a food crisis, bearing in mind the westernisation of diets in China and India, which is leading to a greater demand for food crops that the biofuel industry also wants.

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Increasing gas mileage and horsepower with fast food waste

“Think about it,” Goodwin laughs. “…a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!”

Thus does Johnathan Goodwin, a 37-year old “who looks like Kevin Costner with better hair,” describe the 2005 H3 Hummer he’s recently hacked into being a tricked-out electric hybrid that runs on waste frying oils from fast food joints.

Fast Company Magazine calls him the “Motorhead Messiah” for taking the hugest gas-guzzlers in America and modifying them to get up to four times their rated gas mileage while burning low-emission biofuels grown on US soil - all the while doubling their horsepower. That’s what is becoming known as “Green and Mean.”

Martin Tobias, CEO of Imperium Renewables - the nation’s largest producer of biodiesel fuels, says Goodwin is in a league of his own. “Nobody out there is doing experiments like he is.” Particularly no one in Detroit. The big American automakers have been whining for decades that what Goodwin does regularly just because he can is impossible.

Which, lobbyists for the Detroit contingent tell us, is why they’ve fought aggressively against raising fuel efficiency and emissions standards. It hasn’t worked, as labor unrest in the UAW has been brewing and Congress is threatening to raise the fuel efficiency standards for cars by 10 miles per gallon and a dozen states are enacting laws requiring steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, Japan has flood the market with vehicles that get up to 40% better gas mileage than any American cars, and Mercedes’ new BlueTec diesel sedans not only deliver better mileage, they produce boosted horsepower as well. What’s wrong with American automakers?

Goodwin says they could do it as well as he can. 90% of the parts he uses in conversions are made by American auto parts manufacturers. He’s got an eighth grade education, didn’t even go to high school. Surely all those multi-degreed engineers and designers in Detroit could figure it out.

Yet to their continuing discredit, American automakers are very slow on the uptake. They pretend to know their market, what people want, and yet consistently ignore it year after year. As the competition beats them to the punch every time, and their bottom line triggers bottom-feeding frenzies.

It is clear that the US has to cure its addiction to the Middle East’s black gold. We cannot grow enough corn on all the farmland in the country to fuel our cars with ethanol. And if we tried that, we’d all starve long before we could save up enough cash to buy one of those cars. GM holds a joint patent with the EPA on a new passenger car diesel engine as efficient as the new Mercedes engine, but has refused for as long as the patent has been held to actually build it and put it in their production line.

While Canada has installed plug-in outlets in its parking lots and parking meters so Canadians can warm their engines enough to start in below-zero temperatures, Detroit complains that it can’t use hydrogen fuels because they have to be pre-heated. Like diesels have to be pre-heated. Heck, they won’t even give us the hybrids Japan could sell here just as fast as they can produce them, if Detroit’s automakers hadn’t lobbied for restrictions in the law that puts strict limits on how many hybrid cars can be produced and sold.

What’s wrong is more than just institutional inertia. If something doesn’t change soon, there will be no US automakers - they’ll all be out of business and smaller, more flexible companies will arise to fill the gaps. Companies more in tune with the customer’s desires for something actually worth the tens of thousands of dollars invested. Something that they can afford to drive from point A to point B, something they’re not ashamed to be seen driving.

Automobile and truck manufacturing is a huge chunk of America’s economic base. Transportation of people and goods dictates all peripheral industries and policies in our economy. It’s the reason we’re at war right now in the Middle East and Western Asia, thus the reason our children are dying on foreign battlefields. All so we can drive our Hummers around town with American flag stickers on the bumpers and yellow ribbons on the windows, without feeling guilty for being the greediest, meanest, most arrogant conspicuous consumers the world has ever seen.

It may be time to think up some new ideas. Goodwin’s way ahead on that.

This article is reproduced from People First Politics with Aileen’s kind permission.

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On March 7th. The BBC Money Programme screened a program that questions the sustainability and cost of producing bio-fuels for transport use. The 30 minute programme was quite enlightening.

To view a video of the programme Click Here

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The world’s motor manufacturers have been falling over themselves at the Geneva Motor Show to enhance their green credentials (Do they have any?)

One of the companies with the biggest hill to climb, Bentley, has surprised a few people. It has recently come under fire for the copious quantities of black gold quaffed by it’s goliaths of the road But it has announced plans to double, yes double, the miles per gallon from around 15 to 30 within four years. A 40 percent uplift in fuel efficiency, together with a 15 percent reduction in CO2 emissions are planned for 2012.It plans to do this by introducing a new engine capable of running on waste derived bio-fuel as well as petrol (gas). And all this without sacrificing performance.

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European legislators have taken a step which has angered Green campaigners and reversed the efforts of many environmentally aware motorists.

In a move which will force drivers in all member states to waste money and spew out more carbon dioxide, the European Union has injured it’s green credentials by ordering that vehicles will have to travel during the day with their lights on.

The ‘ludicrous’ European directive, to be introduced in 2011, has been condemned by campaigners who say the rules will make roads more dangerous for motorcycles and cause more deaths.

British Transport Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, is opposed to the measure but the majority of EU states were in favour. A majority vote is all that was necessary.

Mr. Fitzpatrick admitted that the new rules, which relate to all new vehicles, would lead to annual fuel consumption across the EU to rise by 5 per cent.

According to the Automobile Association, the average UK family car covering the average 8,770 miles a year would increase fuel costs by some £68 a year at today’s prices. That is based on 31 miles per gallon. But some gas guzzlers only do 13mpg, meaning an increase of up to £160 a year.

Big trucks with an average consumption of 8.1mpg would see costs soar by £260 a year. Needless to say, that will cause the cost of all goods to rise sharply. The government could reduce fuel tax so that the Directive has a neutral cost effect, but that is about as likely as Zimbabwe putting the next man on the moon.

Daytime running lights have been compulsory in Scandinavia since the late 1970’s – which is why Swedish Volvos always have their lights on.

According to a Dutch research study, some 5,500 deaths and 155,000 injuries could be prevented by implementation of the Directive.

Greg Knight, a UK Member of Parliament opposed to the measure said, “This idea was being pushed by the Scandinavians and it’s absolutely ludicrous that it should be imposed in a blanket fashion across Europe. The UK does not suffer from the short hours of daylight as in northern Europe, and places like Spain certainly don’t. All the green groups are worried about the environment – surely this will make it worse. There are also fears it will harm road safety.”

Stephen Ladyman, another UK MP, said “This directive will kill a lot of motorcyclists. They use daytime lights to make them easier to see, but if cars are using them as well, motorbikes will just blur into the background.”

Edmund King of the Automobile Association said, “Daytime running lights offer a significant safety advantage, particularly for pedestrians trying to spot moving cars through a line of parked vehicles. However, motorcyclists are very worried that other motorists will no longer be able to pick them out from other traffic.”

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The first flight by a commercial airline to be powered partly by biofuel has landed in Amsterdam, today February 24th. after flying from London’s Heathrow Airport.

Although hailed by Virgin Atlantic as a green fuel breakthrough, the flight did not carry passengers.

Earlier this month, Airbus used the world’s largest passenger jet, the A380, to test another alternative fuel - a synthetic mix of gas-to-liquid.The three-hour Airbus flight from Filton near Bristol to Toulouse on 1 February was part of an ongoing research programme. 

Many environmentalists argue that cultivating biofuel is not sustainable and will lead to reduced land for food. And already the increased demand from the burgeoning populations of Asia for more “sophisticated” foods is causing an upward pressure on food prices in the West.

Virgin’s Boeing 747 had one of its four engines connected to a separate biofuel tank that it said would provide 20% of the engine’s power The three other engines were, however, capable of powering the plane on conventional fuel should a problem arise.

The biofuel was produced, we now know, from a mixture of babassu nuts and coconuts.

A company spokesman said the babassu tree, which is native to Brazil, and the coconuts did not compete with staple food sources and came from existing mature plantations.Both products are commonly used in cosmetics and household paper products.

One problem with flying planes using biofuel is the greater possibility that it might freeze at high altitude.

The technology is still being manufactured by companies GE and Boeing, but Virgin believes that, within 10 years, airlines could routinely be flying on plant power.

Friends of the Earth spokesman, Kenneth Richter, called the flight a “gimmick”, distracting from real solutions to climate change. “If you look at the latest scientific research it clearly shows biofuels do very little to reduce emissions,” he said.“At the same time we are very concerned about the impact of the large-scale increase in biofuel production on the environment and food prices worldwide.“What we need to do is stop this mad expansion of aviation. At the moment it is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the UK, and we need to stop subsidising the industry.”

Greenpeace’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, labelled the flight a “high-altitude greenwash” and said a reduction in air travel was the only answer.“Instead of looking for a magic green bullet, Virgin should focus on the real solution to this problem and call for a halt to relentless airport expansion.”But Virgin Atlantic president Sir Richard Branson countered this, saying the flight was an early step towards greener aviation.“This pioneering flight will enable those of us who are serious about reducing our carbon emissions to go on developing the fuels of the future, fuels which will power our aircraft in the years ahead through sustainable next-generation oils, such as algae.”

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