Aircraft certification standards are among the set of mechanisms that can be used to incentivize CO2 emission reductions from commercial aviation. Setting such standards requires the definition and identification of a metric (e.g. gCO2/km.kg, gCO2/passenger.km) and its scope of applicability (i.e., type of aircraft, reference missions, fuel mix). The use of poorly defined metrics to establish policies can create equity issues amongst stakeholders that may result in unintended reactions or behaviors. This has the potential to decrease policy effectiveness and drive the system to a different operating point than the one originally intended. Project 30's objective is to identify robust metrics that will accurately and objectively evaluate emissions over time. First, a broad range of candidate metrics for aircraft CO2 emissions will be systematically generated. Second, the relationship of these candidate metrics to the current fleet , and the possible impacts on the future evolution of the fleet and aircraft development will be assessed. Third, potential equity issues and gaming dynamics resulting from the implementation of each of the metric will be evaluated. Finally, interdependencies of the proposed CO2 emission metrics with other environmental objectives (i.e., NOx, noise, etc.) will be assessed.
Identification of a metric, or set of metrics, for potential use in the certification of aircraft and for monitoring fleet performance. Also, development of recommendations on the scope of applicability of these metrics.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
Ian Waitz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iaw@mit.edu
Laszlo Windhoffer, laszlo.windhoffer@faa.gov
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, 37-311, Cambridge, MA 02139