OCT 14

In the past couple of years, we've seen many, many tests being carried out by numerous different airlines and agencies to study the possibilities of using biofuel as an entire replacement for or as a blend with conventional jet fuel. But biofuels as a replacement for petroleum-based jet fuel may not be the ideal solution.

Biofuels are better than straight petroleum-based products, but there are drawbacks to biofuels, as well. Dedicating cropland to grow fuel crops can cut down on the available land and farming resources for food production. There are arguments against algae-based fuels, as well. They don't compete with food for farmland, but the industrial infrastructure needed to produce algae-based fuel at scale is a daunting prospect.

Of course, conversion to any new material is a daunting prospect. The development of new technologies will eventually be necessary, one way or another. To continue to research alternatives and to find the best mix of feedstock for alternative fuels is importatnt not only for aviation, but for all energy technologies.

Virgin Atlantic, which is one of the many airlines to have tested biofuels, is now exploring a jet fuel replacement that, rather than using bio materials as feedstock, is derrived from waste industrial gas from steel production.  But if that relies on petroleum fuels as the original feedstock, then the long term viability of that process is also questionable.

via: Treehugger and Guardian

Comments (7)

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Not necessarily
written by Mark, October 26, 2011

Unfortunately, when one thinks about using crop land for biofuel vs food, they are usually thinking in traditional terms of farming. If fruit and nut trees were planted to produce food worldwide, hunger could be eliminated, enough biomass to fuel the worlds needs could be met and traditional 'farm lands' could be used more efficiently for crops like sugarcane. Think about it.

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old vet
written by Rich, October 28, 2011

Please check out rentek-RTK. You may be very supprised to see what this company is doing and has plans to to. By the way all of LAX ground equipment is running of of their fuel. They have used it to fly a B 52 as well as fighter jets as a 50-50 blend. It can be in large trucks and converted to power gas powered cars. They can turn almost anything into fuel,wood chips,crop waste,clean liquid coal ++++. They are leasing their teck to many other companys.This is not a fly by night company and have been working hard for many years to make a clean American fuel. It's worth at least checking them out.

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...
written by drew, October 28, 2011

the technology for algae based fuels has arrived.

imagine if it was ww2 and the army needed them...we'd have it up and running in a year for ever.

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Majority of GHGs unaffected by biofuels
written by VisualCarbon, October 28, 2011

According to both IPCC and ICAO science, CO2 is less than half of the radiative forcing of jet emissions. NOx, contrails and induced cirrus cloudiness create a larger impact.

Plus biofuels aren't carbon neutral so they only reduce a portion of the CO2 component anyway.

The UK government looked at how much of a GHG cut aviation could expect by 2050 via a strong push into biofuels and it was a tiny sliver of what is needed to hold aviation emissions flat. The big GHG cuts will come from improvements to engines/airframes, changes to ATM/Operations and demand reduction via carbon pricing and limiting growth of airport capacity.

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Yes Mark, I Concur
written by Sapoty, October 28, 2011

We would also save a lot of health costs and remove much suffering. It would be a welcome Return to the Planet of the Humanatans.

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Liquified hydrogen best fuel - now low cost
written by ghonadz, October 29, 2011

Recent developments show a way to produce hydrogen cheaply, without any electricity required, using just sunlight and slightly doped water.
Novel Alloy Could Produce Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight
Liquid hydrogen has about the same energy per gallon as gasoline and can be stored safely in super-insulated tanks.
Would You Believe 633 Miles on a 40-Gallon Tank of Liquid Hydrogen?
Hydrogen is the best and most non-polluting fuel because the only thing produced in its combustion is pure water. Given what we're discovering about the negative effects of current jet fuel pollution high in the troposphere, hydrogen is certainly the best choice as a future aviation fuel.

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IMHO
written by Seattle WA SQBiofuels.com, September 12, 2012

The production of biofuel is very inefficient at this moment. Unless scientists are able to come out with better alternatives to produce biofuel with high efficiency, I believe it is an inefficient way to run jets. Hydrogen certainly has great potential to be a future aviation fuel. Anyway, thanks for the article Philip! Keep it up

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