Neha Jain: http://canadianaviationnews.blogspot.com/ 31

Porter Air at the Toronto Island Airport. - Air Canada is set to join Porter Airlines at the Toronto Island airport on May 1. | Peter Power/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

1. Tunnel would save island airport passengers four minutes, report says
A proposed $50-million pedestrian tunnel linking Toronto’s waterfront to the island airport will save air passengers about four minutes waiting time before their flights, compared with using the ferry.

That’s among the conclusions of a city-commissioned report into Billy Bishop airport, where growing business-commuter traffic is raising the hackles of some community activists.
The newly released report, by international aviation consultants Airbiz.aero, used computer modelling to determine that a passenger using the proposed underwater tunnel would wait just over five minutes for check-in and security screening, on average.

Passengers on the free ferry, which runs every 15 minutes, wait just over nine minutes at check-in and security.

“The ferry has the impact of accumulating passengers which then result in excessive wait times ... by creating artificial 15 minute peaks based on the arrival-departure of the ferry,” says a draft copy of the report, dated Feb. 3.

“A pedestrian tunnel would somewhat reduce congestion at the terminal by introducing a steady flow of passengers.”

The draft was obtained by The Canadian Press under Ontario’s freedom-of-information legislation.

2. Seeds of a new energy industry

New fuel standards are driving demand for biodiesel plants, but hopes hinge on subsidies

EDMONTON — Adding vegetable oil to diesel will soon be the law across Canada, and with millions of hectares planted in canola, Alberta stands to be a big winner in the push to produce the green fuel.

But backers of proposed plants in Vegreville and Lloydminster, two huge projects that could supply half the Canadian market, are still hoping to get production credits from a federal EcoEnergy program which was exhausted in October.

They and other proponents hope funds already set aside but not used — because the winners can’t get their projects launched — will become available under the March 22 federal budget and redistributed.

“I am optimistic something will happen to encourage new domestic production. Certainly farm groups and federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz have been huge supporters,” said Gordon Quaiattini, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.

“Since the announcement of the EcoEnergy program in 2007, not a single industrial-scale biodiesel facility (producing more than 100 million litres per year) has been built.”

The federal government intends to make a two-per-cent biodiesel (called B2) addition to petroleum diesel mandatory on July 1. Manitoba and B.C. already do that, and Alberta will insist on the B2 standard starting on April 1.

It’s a different story with ethanol added to gasoline. The demand created by the five-per-cent blend (which also comes into effect in Alberta on April 1) will be fully met by Canadian plants operating or under construction.

Alberta has biofuel production credits of between nine and 13 cents per litre under an extension of its biofuel program which also begins April 1. The federal EcoEnergy credits are 10 cents per litre.

Together, the federal/provincial aid would be enough to level the playing field with the United States, which offers its producers a $1-a-gallon blending credit (about 25 cents a litre).

Under free trade, U.S. biodiesel produced from American corn or soy can enter Canada, and it offers petroleum firms here a subsidized product for blending.

And that is what has been happening in B.C. and Manitoba, and will continue until Canada can supply its own market.

Many American plants are waiting to go online as more states enact biodiesel requirements. In 2009, U.S. production was 1.7 billion litres, but there was capacity for 5.9 billion litres. Canada will need one billion litres under the B2 blending standard, but currently produces only about 150 million litres in several small plants.

“The federal producer credits would be worth $100 million over five years to us,” said Darrell Michaels, president of Biostreet Canada Inc., which is ready to go with its 237-million-litre-a-year plant in Vegreville.

“So we might export, too. In Europe their biodiesel mandate is 10 per cent and there is a lot of demand, but they need their land for food production. In Alberta there is always lots of green (subgrade) canola available.”

With all its permits and engineering in place, Biostreet fully expected it would receive its EcoEnergy production credits last year, which would have allowed it to arrange financing and begin construction almost immediately.

“We were further down the road than anyone in Western Canada. The feds said they would tell us in April, then May, then in October they said they were out of money.”

So Biostreet has gone back over its financial projections and, with the Alberta credit and more investors, it hopes to get the project underway this year.

It’s a similar story in Lloydminster. Canadian Bioenergy plans to build a plant to produce up to 265 million litres a year in a joint venture with agri-foods giant Archer Daniels Midland.

“Alberta is the most attractive place to build. On the ethanol side you have wheat supply, and on the biodiesel side you have canola and animal fat,” said Doug Hooper, chief executive of Bioenergy.

3. $50m tunnel to Tto island airport to save four minutes: report

OTTAWA - A proposed $50-million pedestrian tunnel linking Toronto's waterfront to the island airport will save air passengers about four minutes waiting time before their flights, compared with using the ferry.
That's among the conclusions of a city-commissioned report into Billy Bishop airport, where growing business-commuter traffic is raising the hackles of some community activists.
The newly released report, by international aviation consultants Airbiz.aero, used computer modelling to determine that a passenger using the proposed underwater tunnel would wait just over five minutes for check-in and security screening, on average.
Passengers on the free ferry, which runs every 15 minutes, wait just over nine minutes at check-in and security.
"The ferry has the impact of accumulating passengers which then result in excessive wait times ... by creating artificial 15 minute peaks based on the arrival-departure of the ferry," says a draft copy of the report, dated Feb. 3.
"A pedestrian tunnel would somewhat reduce congestion at the terminal by introducing a steady flow of passengers."
The draft was obtained by The Canadian Press under Ontario's freedom-of-information legislation.
To pay for the proposed tunnel, the airport last summer added $5 to the $15 fee it previously charged for each passenger on an outgoing flight. About 1.2 million people flew from Billy Bishop in 2010, almost all with Porter Airlines Inc. Air Canada is set to begin some competing flights to Montreal on May 1.
A spokesman for the federally operated Toronto Port Authority, which is responsible for the facility, defended the additional $5 charge to save four minutes.
"In the world of aviation every second counts, not least to our business travellers, who often fly specifically from our Billy Bishop (airport) so they can leave their meeting and get to their flights in a matter of minutes," said president and CEO Geoffrey Wilson.
"The ferry, while consistent, is currently the only method of accessing the airport and if there are inclement weather conditions it could, and on occasion has, been delayed."
The port authority plans to continue regular ferry service even after construction of the tunnel.
The head of a local group opposed to the island airport said the new report raises basic questions about the need for a tunnel.
"Spending what appears to be upwards of $50 million for a bit of smoothing of passenger flow to the island airport is an incredible waste of public assets," said Brian Iler, chairman of CommunityAir.
"Will passengers really use a facility that requires them to take an elevator down six stories, travel across through the tunnel, and take another elevator back up, when the ferry is right there — or will be in a few minutes?"
The Airbiz.aero report also endorsed the findings of a previous review, by Jacobs Consultancy Canada, that said a daily cap of 202 "slots" — that is, the right to land or take off 202 times in one day — was reasonable, based on noise-level restrictions and other factors.
Jets are not permitted at the airport, to help dampen noise in an area that's home to thousands of downtown residents.
Airbiz.aero said the pedestrian tunnel will not lead to expanded service at Billy Bishop, as community activists had claimed, because a restriction on the length of the main runway already sets a limit on the amount of air traffic.
The federal Transport Department last month introduced a draft regulation to expressly permit construction of a pedestrian tunnel, to eliminate any doubt about the current regulations, which prohibit a "fixed link." The deadline for feedback was March 4.
The current regulations date from May 2005, when the previous Liberal government acceded to local political opposition to a proposed bridge to the island airport, and prohibited construction of "a bridge or similar fixed link."
Newly elected Toronto mayor Rob Ford has said he supports construction of a pedestrian tunnel.
The Toronto Port Authority, which has said the tunnel could cost between $50 million and $60 million, has not yet hired a contractor as it awaits the new regulation from Transport Canada.
The Airbiz.aero report says the tunnel will require additional infrastructure at the waterfront to better accommodate the flow of pedestrians and other traffic.

NEHA JAIN

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