Study of "Aircraft on Ground" CO2 emissions at Bristol Airport

Abstract

[EN] Aviation is widely known as one of the most important sources of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, both during flight and ground operations. These gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO), methane and nitrous oxides, contribute effectively to the dangerous warming of the Earth and ocean acidification, amongst other noxious effects to the planet. This indisputable fact constitutes the main motivation of this project, which concentrates on carbon dioxide reduction opportunities at Bristol Airport.

Carbon dioxide emissions at airports take different forms, ranging from those over which the airport has direct control to those which they can influence but they have no direct control over. A significant amount of CO emissions at airports originate from aircraft ground and low altitude movements, sources that are often omitted or briefly mentioned by aircraft emission studies, but that constitute the primary field of study of this report.

The aim of this project is to quantify the CO footprint of Bristol Airport ground movements, as well as to propose different and feasible measures to decrease it. The possible improvements are quantified by posing three different case scenarios: do nothing; which assumes no action is taken, current; which takes into account measures already taking place at the airport, and improved, which assumes the effective engagement of all possible reduction measures. In order to do this, a methodology on calculating carbon emissions developed by the Airport Operators Association has been employed and a spreadsheet used. The results of this study show that savings of up to 6,500 tonnes of CO per annum can be achieved compared to the current scenario, comprising a potential improvement of around 15%.