European Commission awards €217 million to research projects for greener, safer and more competitive air transport
The European Commission unveiled today the results of the first EU-wide call for research proposals in aeronautics and air transport under the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7). The 36 highly innovative projects [*.pdf] selected in that first call should bring important advances into greener, safer, more secure air transport and improved cost efficiency in aeronautics – FP7's research priority themes. Several of the projects include research into biofuels.
€217 million was made available for this first batch of projects, out of a total of €2.1 billion for aeronautics research in the years 2007 to 2013. The projects were selected following an evaluation by independent experts, and are now subject to final contract negotiations between the project teams and the European Commission.
EU emissions from international aviation are increasing fast – by 87% since 1990 – as air travel becomes cheaper without its environmental costs being addressed. The rapid growth in aviation emissions contrasts with the success of many other sectors of the economy in reducing emissions. Without action, the growth in emissions from flights from EU airports is expected, by 2012, to cancel out more than a quarter of the 8% emission reduction the EU-15 must achieve to reach its Kyoto Protocol target. By 2020, aviation emissions are forecast to more than double from present levels.
This first call in the area of aeronautics under the FP7 received nearly 200 proposals, with the partners coming from across Europe and beyond:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: aviation :: air transport :: climate change :: efficiency :: European Union ::
There was particularly strong interest from Central and Eastern Europe and third countries. The best 36 proposals, as identified by independent external evaluators, were selected for funding.
They include innovative research into key areas such as flight physics and alternative fuels to reduce CO2 emissions; new systems to improve the safety of aircraft in bad weather; advances in 'self repairing' capability for aircraft materials; and blast-proof cabin secondary structures. Competitiveness is also a key preoccupation, with a number of projects specifically targeting production and development costs of airframe, structures, engines and components.
The projects include 26 collaborative research projects; 6 coordination and support actions aimed at stimulating participation of SMEs and a wide range of Member States; and 4 large projects aimed at bringing innovative technologies closer to market. The four largest projects, which will alone receive half of the funding, involve major players in the air transport industry with the dual goal of reinforcing Europe's industrial leadership and responding to environmental and safety concerns.
They are:
References:
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research: list of selected initiatives [*.pdf].
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research - Transport, Aeronautics: Towards future air transport.
AlphaGalileo: Commission launches new generation of research projects for greener, more competitive air transport - October 17, 2007.
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research: Commission names new projects for greener and more competitive air transport - October 4, 2007.
European Commission: Questions & Answers on aviation & climate change.
Article continues
€217 million was made available for this first batch of projects, out of a total of €2.1 billion for aeronautics research in the years 2007 to 2013. The projects were selected following an evaluation by independent experts, and are now subject to final contract negotiations between the project teams and the European Commission.
Research holds the key to many of the challenges we face in today's world, including how to make air transport safer, greener, quieter and more efficient. The projects selected from the latest round of proposals all address one or other of these vital issues. Today's announcement once again highlights how important it is for our quality of life to invest in bringing new technologies to the market. - Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Science and ResearchThe greening of air transport means developing technologies to reduce the environmental impact of aviation with the aim of halving the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by air transport, cutting specific emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 80% and halving perceived noise. The targets reflect the Ultra Green High Level Target Concepts developed by the Advisory Council for Aeronautical Research in Europe (ACARE) in its strategic research agenda. Reducing soot, water vapour and particulates emissions will also be tackled.
EU emissions from international aviation are increasing fast – by 87% since 1990 – as air travel becomes cheaper without its environmental costs being addressed. The rapid growth in aviation emissions contrasts with the success of many other sectors of the economy in reducing emissions. Without action, the growth in emissions from flights from EU airports is expected, by 2012, to cancel out more than a quarter of the 8% emission reduction the EU-15 must achieve to reach its Kyoto Protocol target. By 2020, aviation emissions are forecast to more than double from present levels.
This first call in the area of aeronautics under the FP7 received nearly 200 proposals, with the partners coming from across Europe and beyond:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: aviation :: air transport :: climate change :: efficiency :: European Union ::
There was particularly strong interest from Central and Eastern Europe and third countries. The best 36 proposals, as identified by independent external evaluators, were selected for funding.
They include innovative research into key areas such as flight physics and alternative fuels to reduce CO2 emissions; new systems to improve the safety of aircraft in bad weather; advances in 'self repairing' capability for aircraft materials; and blast-proof cabin secondary structures. Competitiveness is also a key preoccupation, with a number of projects specifically targeting production and development costs of airframe, structures, engines and components.
The projects include 26 collaborative research projects; 6 coordination and support actions aimed at stimulating participation of SMEs and a wide range of Member States; and 4 large projects aimed at bringing innovative technologies closer to market. The four largest projects, which will alone receive half of the funding, involve major players in the air transport industry with the dual goal of reinforcing Europe's industrial leadership and responding to environmental and safety concerns.
They are:
DREAM (Validation of Radical Engine Architecture Systems). This project with 47 partners from 13 countries is led by Rolls Royce. It will develop new engine concepts based on open contra-rotating rotors, with a target of a 7% reduction in CO2 emissions and 3 decibel reduction in noise. It will also develop specifications for alternative fuels as well as assessing and testing future potential fuels. The project will receive around €25 million from the EU budget.Final budget figures (EU contribution) and project details are subject to the final signature of contracts. The first projects should start their research in January 2008.
MAAXIMUS (More Affordable Aircraft Structure through Extended, Integrated and Mature Numerical Sizing). This project with 58 partners from 18 countries is led by Airbus. It focuses on improving the composition and design of fuselages to cut assembly time in half and reduce structural weight by 10%, with a lighter airframe leading to lower CO2 emissions. MAAXIMUS will receive around €40 million.
HIRF SE (High Intensity Radiated Field Synthetic Environment). This project gathers 44 partners from 11 countries, with Alenia in the lead. It will create simulators to test new aircrafts' reactions to electromagnetic interference. More research is needed in this field because of the growing use of composite materials in aircraft building. HIRF SE is set to receive around €18 million.
SCARLETT. This project led by Thales will develop new and advanced modular avionics platforms for a range of aircraft types. It will receive around €23 million.
References:
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research: list of selected initiatives [*.pdf].
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research - Transport, Aeronautics: Towards future air transport.
AlphaGalileo: Commission launches new generation of research projects for greener, more competitive air transport - October 17, 2007.
European Commission - Directorate-General for Research: Commission names new projects for greener and more competitive air transport - October 4, 2007.
European Commission: Questions & Answers on aviation & climate change.
Article continues
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Scientists dramatically improve poplar's capacity to clean up polluted sites - potential to couple phytoremediation to bioenergy
Researchers since the early '90s have seen the potential for cleaning up contaminated sites by growing plants able to take up nasty groundwater pollutants through their roots. Plants break certain kinds of pollutants into harmless byproducts that the plants either incorporate into their roots, stems and leaves or release into the air.
The problem with plants that are capable of doing this is that the process is slow and halts completely when growth stops in winter. Using plants in this way - the process known as phytoremediation (schematic, click to enlarge) - often hasn't made sense given the timetables required by regulatory agencies at remediation sites.
Together with scientists from Oregon State University and Purdue University, Doty engineered trees that were able to do the cleaning much faster. The transgenic poplars take as much as 91 percent of trichloroethylene, the most common groundwater contaminant at U.S. Superfund sites, out of a liquid solution. Unaltered plants in the same laboratory setting removed only 3 percent. The poplar plants - all cuttings just several inches tall growing in vials - also were able to break down, or metabolize, the pollutant into harmless byproducts at rates 100 times that of the control plants. The scientists publish their findings in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While U.S. regulations allow the growing of transgenic trees in greenhouses and controlled field trials for research purposes, they do not allow the commercial growing of transgenic trees. A transgenic plant is one in which its genetic material is manipulated. Sometimes only its own genetic material is altered and sometimes genetic material is added from other plants, bacteria or animals.
The scientists' new achievement raises the interesting question of the potential for using transgenic trees on sites where toxic plumes of pollutants are on the move in groundwater.
Trichloroethylene is a heavily used industrial degreaser that's made its way into groundwater because of improper disposal. Both unaltered poplars and the transgenic poplar plants produce the enzymes to break down trichloroethylene, C2HCl3, into chloride ions - harmless salt that the plant sheds - and recombines the carbon and hydrogen with oxygen to produce water and carbon dioxide.
The transgenic poplar plants just do it a lot faster. The enzymes used to metabolize the contaminants are from a group called cytochrome P450 found in both plants and animals. Poplars have a lot of P450s. Doty said scientists hope to eventually sort them to find ways to manipulate the plant's own genes to ramp up pollution degradation:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: groundwater :: pollution :: phytoremediation :: poplar ::
In the meantime they are conducting experiments inserting a gene that produces cytochrome P450 in mammalian livers, in this case the livers of rabbits. Poplar genes producing cytochrome P450 is expressed in all their cells, but not at the rates achieved by the transgenics.
Mammalian cytochrome P450 has already been used in transgenic plants that can detoxify herbicides applied to fields to kill weeds. Japanese researchers, for example, published findings in 2005 about using a human gene to make rice plants degrade a suite of herbicides, something they said could help reduce the load of herbicides in paddy fields and streams.
Along with the trichloroethylene tests, the new results also found improved rates of uptake from solutions of chloroform, the byproduct of disinfecting drinking water; carbon tetrachloride, a solvent; and vinyl chloride, a substance used to make plastics. In air pollution experiments using 6-inch plants in closed containers, the transgenic plants had increased absorption of gaseous trichloroethylene and benzene, a pollutant associated with petroleum.
Doty and her colleagues plan to do additional experiments to determine the detoxification rates when poplars are grown in soils, and to ensure that plant tissues do not harm non-target organisms, such as bugs that might chew on them.
Sites with contaminated groundwater are treated in a variety of chemical, physical and microbial ways, says Stuart Strand, UW professor of forest resources and a co-author of the paper. In some places the groundwater is pumped out of the ground and the contaminants allowed to evaporate into the air. In other places sugars pumped into the ground can clean contaminants but make the water anaerobic - oxygen starved - and can produce other toxic byproducts, he says. "It's destructive, disruptive and expensive," Strand says.
Some people see transgenic trees as risky. The scientists take these concerns seriously:
Because there is concern that transgenic trees might get into regular forests, Doty and her colleagues believe poplars may be a good choice, she said. Poplars are fast growing and can grow for several years without flowering, at which time they could be harvested to prevent seeds from generating. And unlike some other kinds of trees, branches of the hybrid poplar being studied do not take root in soils when branches fall to the ground.
Even though these things are true, Doty and her co-authors imagine that transgenic trees planted at contaminated sites would involve high levels of containment around where they are being grown.
Biopact asked Doty whether she saw any potential in the use of the enhanced poplars in a synergy with bioenergy production:
Work on phytoremediation at the University of Washington has been funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.
Earlier scientists have looked specifically at using energy crops for phytoremediation. Examples include hybrid poplars that could be grown to soak up polluted water from coal mining sites (earlier post) and miscanthus to clean up brown fields (more here and here).
Poplar has received attention from the bioenergy community as an ideal biomass crop. It is the first tree to have had its entire genome sequenced (previous post).
References:
Sharon L. Doty, et al. "Enhanced phytoremediation of volatile environmental pollutants with transgenic trees", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Published online before print October 16, 2007, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0703276104
Eurekalert: Scientists ramp up ability of poplar plants to disarm toxic pollutants - October 15, 2007.
Biopact: Energy crops and phytoremediation - new plants may soak up methane water - August 15, 2006
Biopact: Turning brownfields into greenfields with the help of biofuels - August 9, 2006
Biopact: France to use miscanthus to clean up polluted urban sites - August 22, 2006
Biopact: Virginia Tech researchers receive $1.2 million to study poplar tree as model biomass crop - June 26, 2007
Biopact: The first tree genome is published: Poplar holds promise as renewable bioenergy resource - September 14, 2006
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