Jeff Gazzard on “Are biofuel flights good news for the environment?”

Date added: 11 October, 2011

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This is a comment from Jeff Gazzard, from the Aviation Environment Federation,
responsing to the Guardian’s page entitled “Are biofuel flights good news for
the environment?”  It’s worth the read!

It comes after both the Thomson flight on 6th October, using 50% used cooking
oil in one engine (Thomson link) – and the announcement on 11th October that Virgin hopes to get fuel supplies
from the waste gases emitted from steel production. (Virgin link) 

Jeff Gazzard

The main purpose behind Thomson’s flight from Birmingham last week was to test
one engine in isolation on a waste cooking oil-derived biofuel from a food processing
factory in the United States. This will give them an important insight into any
maintenance or engineering issues that may arise, which is a sensible test programme
in my view.

Of course there are PR objectives but at least Thomson are willing to discuss
the issues surrounding sustainability and I went along to this event at Birmingham
airport where I learnt 2 things:

1. Thomson rejected one type of fuel produced at the US plant, which belongs
to Tyson Foods, made from rendered animal waste, tallow, as unsustainable because
of land use pressures back up the meat production chain. This is a decision I
can understand and support

2. There is not, and never will be, enough waste cooking oil to make even the
smallest of dents in aviation’s carbon footprint!

Right now, aviation biofuel is simply a PR-led device to frame the debate and
divert attention away from the other 99.9% of aviation’s damaging CO2 emissions.

Just look at today’s announcement from our very own Knight of Biofuel PR, Sir
Richard Branson. Very soon apparently, giant machines will suck the effluent gases
from steel making into huge chambers; then extract the carbon monoxide from this
mix and turn this gas into alcohol; and then into sustainable aviation biofuel.
Et voila!

In the last few years, Branson has touted sustainable aviation biofuel from the
babassu nut, a South American palm: whatever happend to that route, Richard?

We then had an investment in a company called Gevo who claim to be able to make
cheap bio-butanol and then turn that into a jet fuel. How many litres of sustainable
biofuel have yet reached your Virgin Atlantic aircraft from this supplier, Richard?

Sir Richard may yet wish to investigate whether base metals can be turned into
gold. He may have more success.

Let’s look at some facts.

One potential aviation biofuel supplier is the US-based company, Solazyme. Solazyme’s
technology, which uses algae to convert biomass to oil using indirect photosynthesis,
once scaled up full commercial production, could supply around 50-100 million
US gallons per year of cost-competitive jet biofuel in the $60-80 a barrel range,
according to media coverage. Solazyme already has in place contracts with the
US Navy and Air Force to supply its’ jet biofuel product.

Some mathematics – the entire aviation industry would require at least 2810 million
barrels by 2030 at current growth rates. At 42 gallons per barrel that’s roughly
118,000 million gallons. Solazyme could provide 0.08% of that annual requirement.
It will have to get cracking, as Solazyme currently produces very little commercial
biofuel at all apart from small scale test quantities.

Some more mathematics – getting this much aviation fuel from a biomass-to-liquid
route would require 254 milliion hectares of woody energy crops.

Providing it all from jatropha (soooooo last year!) would require 477 million
hectares or 34% of the world’s current arable land area.

Algae production would need 31,000 production facilities of 1,000 hectares each
or 2% of the world’s current arable area.

Ethanol production (converted to aviation spec fuel) from Brazilian-type sugar
cane would need 185 million hectares equivalent to 13% of current global arable
land.

Now I really do wish that there was a truly sustainable biomass source out there
that had a zero carbon footprint – who wouldn’t? But after removing the hype,
there isn’t.

The aviation industry wants us to believe that future flights will waft along
on aircraft seemingly powered by giant air fresheners suspended beneath the wings,
emitting the fragrance of your choice. Not so, I’m afraid.

But let’s be positive. Better brains than mine actually have the answer: tough
constraints on aviation emissions growth. And maybe 10% biofuel by 2050. Please
simply search the web for the UK Committee on Climate Change seminal report “Meeting
the UK Aviation target – options for reducing emissions to 2050” first published
in December 2009.

It’s a cracking read, Sir Richard.

Jeff Gazzard

Aviation Environment Federation

www.aef.org.uk 

The Guardian’s “Are biofuel flights good news for the environment?” page, by
Leo Hickman from Ask Leo and Lucy,is at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2011/oct/11/biofuel-flights-good-environment?CMP=twt_fd

Posted: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011. Filed in Biofuels News.