Biofuels & novel fuels News
Below are links to stories about aviation biofuels.
Qantas trials used cooking oil from SkyNRG (Netherlands) in biofuels flight
Qantas will use recycled American cooking oil to help power a biofuel trial flight tomorrow (13th April). The aircraft will use a mix of biofuel and conventional jet fuel for the Sydney-Adelaide return service. Produced by Dutch firm SkyNRG, the fuel has been used by several other airlines. Qantas claims its "life cycle" carbon footprint is around 60% smaller than that of conventional jet fuel. It is part of a long-term plan to reduce a fuel bill that totalled A$3.6 billion last year. Last year they were enthusiastic about algal biofuel, but there is no mention of that now.
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KLM promises MilieuDefensie (Netherlands) not to buy jatropha from Waterland International
Lufthansa and KLM have flown trial flights, with KLM using - as far as we can make out -used cooking oil fuel, and Lufthansa using fuel made of 80%camelina and 15% jatropha. MilieuDefensie (Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands) has been able to get a written undertaking from KLM not to do future business with a company called Waterland, which produces jatropha. The KLM undertaking does not rule out other jatropha or other unsustainable biofuels in future, however. MilieuDefensie is asking people to write to Lufthansa, to get them to also stop using jatropha fuel. In September 2011, Jatenergy Limited announced it had sold 200 tonnes of crude jatropha oil at US $1,000 per tonne from its joint venture operations with Waterland. The oil had been refined into biojet fuel for Lufthansa by Neste Oil.
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New report from the Netherlands on the failings of aviation biofuels
A new report on biofuels used in aviation has been produced by Milieu Defensie, in the Netherlands. The aviation industry places its hopes of achieving "carbon neutral growth" in future on extensive use of biofuels, as well as carbon offsets from other sectors. The new report shows that not only are the carbon emissions "well to wake" of biofuels for aviation small, but the conventional calculations ignore the non-CO2 effects - cirrus cloud induced by contrails, and NOx effects. These impacts are the same for biofuels as for conventional jet kerosene, and may as much as double the climate effect of jets flying at high altitude. The report points out that the carbon emissions caused by the growing of biofuels are not accounted for anywhere, under the current system - creating a large anomaly in the EU ETS.
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Aviation biofuels conference regards price of “sustainable” jet fuel to be the main problem
GreenAir online reports at length on proceedings of the World Biofuels Markets 2012 conference that took place in March in Rotterdam. Delegates agreed the price of biofuels was still too high to make them commercially viable, and finding fuels that genuinely avoid ILUC (indirect land use change) are not available in large amounts. The airlines and companies want credits for these fuels, and incentives to increase production. Some airlines are prepared to pool together to buy jointly, in order to give producing companies the scale, and the future certainty, they need. For example, there is a 14-airline agreement with AltAir for up to 75 million gallons per year of camelina-derived fuel and a 10-airline letter of intent with Solena for 14 million gallons per year from 2015. And United has executed a LOI to pursue the purchase of 20 million gallons of fuel from Solazyme
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Bombardier Q400 plane to make first Canadian commercial flight on 49% Camelina + 1% ? GM brassica carinata
In mid-April, Porter Airlines plans to use one of its Bombardier 70- to 80-seat Q400 turboprop airliners to conduct the first biofuel-powered revenue flight in Canada. It has already made a biofuel test flight. Rather cynically they are timing their flight close to Earth Day "to emphasize the contribution that biofuels are expected to make in helping the aviation industry meet its targeted reduction in emissions,” and there are a lot of worthy-sounding green sentiments expressed about carbon savings .... the usual over-optimistic greenwash stuff. The fuel they will use will be 50% biofuel, and of that 49% camelina and 1% Brassica carinata (a member of the brassica, cabbage, family). Targeted Growth Canada (TGC) produced the crop of Camelina. The 1% Brassica carinata may be a GM crop, being grown in Canada.
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Boeing, Airbus, Embraer sign MOU to cooperate on biofuels
Boeing, Airbus and Embraer signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) "to work together on the development of drop-in, affordable aviation biofuels," the aircraft manufacturers have announced. The companies said in a joint statement that they have "agreed to seek collaborative opportunities to speak in unity to government, biofuel producers and other key stakeholders to support, promote and accelerate the availability of sustainable new jet fuel sources."
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Is the Solena / British Airways plan for jetfuel from London domestic waste greenwash?
Damian Carrington, of the Guardian, discusses the potential benefits of the plant in East London that is to be built by 2015 by Solena, to turn London's household waste into jet fuel. It will also produce some electricity. British Airways is pushing ahead with a plant that aims to turn half a million tonnes of Londoner's household rubbish into 50,000 tonnes a year of jet fuel. Damian says: " I'll let you decide if this is greenwash or not: here's some of the details." BA's Jonathan Counsel says "We accept we are a significant source of emissions, and growing," he says. "Taking action is about earning our right to grow." Boeing says the industry wants to get 1% biofuel into the global jet fuel supply by 2015, which equates to 600m US gallons a year. And more if it can. Why should this household waste go to aviation fuel, rather than energy for other uses?
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Naked trio fined for Birmingham Airport protest against biofuel
Back in October 2011, three protesters stripped off at Birmingham Airport, to draw attention to the "bare faced" publicity stunt by Thomson Airways, in putting on a few flights with one engine using 50% biofuel from used cooking oil, brought 5,000 miles from a refinery in Louisiana. They have now been fined £150 each, and ordered to pay costs of £80 and a victim surcharge of £15. Thompson said they know the available volumes of used cooking oil are limited and that it can never replace total fossil kerosene consumption, and neither can vegetable oils.
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Chilean flight from Santiago to Concepcion using partly used cooking oil fuel
A Chilean airline has operated a biofuel flight between Santiago and Concepcion, using an Airbus A320, using used cooking oil. There is the usual hype about biofuel flights, and statements about biofuels being a green future, hugely cutting carbon emissions etc etc. They say they "want to be pioneers in the use of renewable fuels in South America.” It is unclear if other flights are planned, or if they intend in future to use other "second generation" biofuels like jatropha, camelina and halophytes, or organic waste such as vegetable oils, or derived from algae.
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Pressure mounts over side-effects of biofuel
Two new studies are due out soon on the failure of biofuels to cut carbon emissions. Studies find that taking the ILUC ( Indirect Land Use Change ) effects into account, biofuels - especially biodiesel - is often worse that fossil fuel, and if there are savings, they are small. The EU has assumed, for its road transport biofuel policies, that biofuels can help cut road transport carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. They cannot. One study says some biofuels are "so bad for the environment that its benefits cannot even be calculated." The other that the savings are small and will not deliver the carbon savings sought.