Biofuels & novel fuels News
Below are links to stories about aviation biofuels.
Chinese plans to double aviation fuel use by 2020 and have 30% of it biofuel
China is expected to use 12 million metric tonnes of aviation biofuels per year by 2020, which the China CAA says will account for 30% of the country’s total use of jet fuel (which is about 20 million metric tonnes per year now, rising up to 40 million by 2020), according to the deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China. He says the EU ETS will prompt China to develop jet biofuels, which will be put into wide commercial use before 2020, when the country is expected to be using more than 40 million metric tonnes of jet fuel a year. China now wants to produce the biofuel more cheaply. The fuel is entirely, or largely, from jatropha. By 2020 the Civil Aviation Administration of China wants to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas by 22% below what they were in 2005 - per passenger kilometer (not in total). With rapidly growing passenger numbers, there will be a net increase (almost a doubling?) in carbon emissions by 2020. The fuel is entirely, or largely, from jatropha.
Click here to view full story...
200 more biofuel flights by KLM using cooking oil – while Lufthansa using Indonesian jatropha
Friends of the Earth International say the German airline Lufthansa has recently been using biokerosene made from jatropha, an inedible plant. The airline claims that flying on biokerosene is good for the environment despite numerous studies claiming the opposite. The jatropha used for Lufthansa’s test flights is grown in Indonesia by small scale farmers. The jatropha plants are often being grown at the cost of food production - jatropha competes with food crops such as maize for land - and the farmers are making a loss on the sale of the plants, so are struggling to survive. FoEI is asking people to write to Lufthansa and ask them to stop using biokerosene to fly their planes. KLM is continuing with part biofuelled flights, 4 per week, using some biofuel from used cooking oil, between Schiphol and Paris.
Click here to view full story...
Some non-food vegetable oil-based aviation biofuels could be cost-competitive by 2020
This GreenAir article says Bloomberg analysts think that while aviation will not use oils from palm, rape or soya on any scale, the industry may be able to source biofuels from non-food crops that are commercially viable, within years. They reckon that while conventional jet kerosene costs about $0.86 per litre now, jet fuel could be produced at $0.86/litre by 2018 if production of jatropha and camelina was scaled up, with pyrolysis of woody feedstock producing jet fuel at $0.90/litre at around the same time. Liquid fuels made using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert woody biomass is unlikely to produce jet fuel cheaper than $2.60/litre in 2018. Large-scale, biofuel-producing algae farms will not appear this decade. However, available volume is going to be limited and airlines will be in competition for it. Costs of biofuel are currently very much higher than paying for ETS carbon permits.
Click here to view full story...
Airbus urges EU to scrap biodiesel incentives for road transport
A senior Airbus executive has said that the EU should bin incentives for road-transport biodiesel or provide equal ones for the production of biokerosene used in airplanes. The target for renewable energy sources in transport for 2020 is now set at 10%, including biofuels, green electricity and other renewables. There is competition now between aviation and road transport for biofuels, but making biokerosene costs more than making biodiesel. Aviation claims it should be given priority, as it cannot use electricity. (Neither, realistically, can road transport for the foeseeable future). Airbus wants "a level playing field or the scrapping of incentives that cover the biodiesel industry.” EU and Member States spent approximately €3.1 billion on biofuel support in 2010.
Click here to view full story...
New FoE report on jatropha cultivation for aviation biokerosene in Java
A new report by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, and Friends of the Earth Indonesia investigates the situation in Java, where jatropha and other crops are being grown to produce biokerosene for Lufthansa's "Burn Fair" programme. The report finds that Javanese farmers and workers have converted some of their land from food to fuel crops, in return for ridiculously low payments. They have had a fall in income, conflict and frustration. Indonesian farmers feel the lifeblood of Indonesia will be tapped for the benefit of wealthier people in Europe and elsewhere. Biofuel crops are putting pressure on land for food. The report says this growing of biofuels for aviation fuel is putting a double pressure on the poor in the global south: both in climate change and food prices.
Click here to view full story...
Etihad Airways operates first biofuel (recycled cooking oil) powered delivery flight
For Etihad, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has taken delivery of a new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which flew from Seattle to Abu Dhabi using a blend of plant-based jet fuel sourced from recycled vegetable cooking oil and traditional jet kerosene. The biofuel blend was supplied by SkyNRG. As a member of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group, Etihad says it is committed to complying with a stringent set of sustainability principles when looking at biofuels, including ensuring feedstocks are non-competitive with food sources and that drinking water supplies are not jeopardised. Airlines are keen to use whatever biofuels they can now, as these fuels are classed as exempt under the EU ETS. They are working with the Masdar Institute to develop biofuels grown in sea water, with a 2km square test area.
Click here to view full story...
BioJet and US Indian Tribes to develop jet biofuel feedstock and refining projects worth $1 billion over 10 years
BioJet International has formed a business alliance with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT)., which represents 57 sovereign Indian Tribes that manage millions of acres of agricultural lands in the United States on which feedstocks for biofuels may be grown. BioJet last year received $1.2 billion in funding from Equity Partners Fund, to invest and make strategic acquisitions over 10 years. CERT manages 56 millions of acres of agricultural land of which BioJet will use about 1 million acres to grow feedstock, using these funds to do so. A Memorandum of Agreement is expected to be concluded within the next two months to define the participation terms of the two sides. CERT tribal lands are supported by financial incentives, so they are exempt in varying degrees from state and local taxation as well as permitting and licensing requirements.
Click here to view full story...
Availability and sustainability key challenges, says Lufthansa, as biofuel trials end with first commercial transatlantic flight
The six-month trial by Lufthansa using biofuel blends on the route between Hamburg and Frankfurt has ended with its first scheduled commercial transatlantic biofuel flight on January 12. In all, 1,187 scheduled flights were carried out between July and December using an Airbus A321 with a 50-50 blend of regular fuel and biosynthetic kerosene in one engine. Total consumption of the biokerosene mix amounted to 1,556 tonnes, says the airline, and initial calculations suggest CO2 emissions were reduced by 1,471 tonnes as a result. [Based on what evidence ?? That is assuming the fuel produces overall about two thirds less carbon than conventional kerosene ? **]
Click here to view full story...
Biodiesels pollute more than crude oil, leaked data show
Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels such as palm oil, soybean and rapeseed are higher than those for fossil fuels when the effects of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) are counted, according to leaked EU data seen by EurActiv. In its recent review of the Fuel Quality Directive, the EU proposed a default value of 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel for oil from tar sands, as compared to 87.5g CO2/mj for crude oil. The data propose ILUC-incorporating CO2/mj values for biofuels as Palm Oil - 105g ;Soybean – 103g ;Rapeseed – 95g; Sunflower – 86g. Some 2nd generation biofuels come out very much lower. The EU’s new biofuels certification plan, (for road vehicles, planes are not included) announced last August stipulates that certification only be awarded to biofuels which emit 35% less greenhouse gas than petrol, with the figure rising to 60% from 2018.
Click here to view full story...
Airlines Flying on Clean Fuel Should Pay Less Tax, Branson Says
Branson manages to persuade many people that he takes his responsibilities to the environment seriously, and really plans to fly "green" and "clean" planes ... whatever those charmingly vague terms mean. The spin about "clean", alternative bio-jet fuels is fair enough if it concerns fuels made from waste flue gases, but his hopes of the aviation industry growing hugely by 2050 and getting half its fuel from biofuels by then are unrealistic. The hype is intended to persuade government etc that the aviation industry is seriously trying to tackle the issue of carbon emissions and thus to get as much government subsidy for this as possible. In reality it is a delaying tactic to to continue business as usual.