OCT 29

Airplanes are some of the most gas-guzzling players in our transportation industry, which makes them a good place to start implementing renewable biofuels. Boeing has recently announced plans to do just that, phasing in 30% biofuel blends within the next 3 to 5 years, depending on when the fuels obtains enough industry commercialization.

What is unclear about this plan, however, is exactly where that fuel will come from. It seems that the major development here is that Boeing (as well as competitor Airbus) has sampled the products coming out of biofuel startups and declared it fit for use on an airplane. It is one thing to develop such a fuel in a lab, but quite another to scale it up enough to make a serious impact on the airline industry.

In particular, biofuel experts are shying away from first generation biofuel crops such as soy beans, which are generally thought to use up agricultural resources otherwise intended for food. And while algae fuels hold more promise, none of the young algae startups are ready to pump out that much fuel in such a short time frame. Although Virgin Airlines recently ran a test flight on algae biofuel, many dismissed this as a publicity stunt, rather than an indication of current availability.

Via Cleantechnia, Guardian UK

Comments (3)

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written by campbell, October 29, 2008

a few days ago, there was a news item out of the UK, in which was detailed a proposal to develop Nuclear powered airplanes. the thinking being that this would eliminate airplane carbon footprint.
using biofuels is a good start, albeit still burning something, at least it is something that can be produced by any market. food used as the feedstocks is the difficulty.

and so.....enter the solution, once again:

SOLAR POWERED FLIGHT

Turtle Airships. (No blimps)

turtleairships dot blogspot dot com

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Plan for the Future
written by Carl, October 29, 2008

Having airplane manufacurers and airlines come up with a plan and tests of biofuels is the right thing to do now, even before there is a source of biofuel. As algae or waste biomass fuel hopefully starts to become available with new technology, there will be a waiting market with fuel quality standards and test procedures available.

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A stunt, or a test?
written by Haldane Dodd, October 30, 2008

While the Virgin Atlantic trial may have been dismissed as a publicity stunt by the green lobby (and who was surprised that they would immediately dismiss anything remotely positive), it was never meant to be anything more than a demonstration of the fact that a flight on biofuel could be done. The trial was to see how the fuel - a babasoo/coconut oil blend, not algae by the way - performed at altitude and in a normal operating environment. It was the first in a number of tests by different airlines to see how biofuel from different feed sources work. Air New Zealand, Japan Airlines and Continental all have flight tests planned in the coming months.

As for availability, the aviation industry (through groups such as the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group) is well into the planning and implementation stages for how to ramp up production of a sustainable biofuel for commercial use - exactly what Boeing has been saying.

I wrote a blog post about this a few days ago - check it out at www.enviro.aero/blog.

As for nuclear-powered aircraft... well, we'll see!

Haldane Dodd
Air Transport Action Group, Geneva

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