Slowly but surely, an extraordinarily important new industry is slowly taking shape, with the potential to transform the global economy.
After years of existing largely as an environmentalist’s fantasy, commercial production of biofuels for the world civil aviation industry is slowly becoming a fact,
An extraordinary convergence of recent events seems poised shortly to make aviation biofuels the belle of the investor’s ball.
The first is that on 8 June the follows the international standards certifying body ASTM International announcing its approval of its BIO SPK Fuel Standard, to be made official later in the year,
For some time now, the adoption of biofuels in aviation as an alternative to pricey fossil fuels has been on the minds of the various branches of the United States Armed Forces. Each branch has their own plan when it comes to adopting biofuels and each has been testing them out over the years. Last year, the U.S. Air Force flew an A-10 Warthog entirely under the power of biofuels and the U.S. Navy has done testing with a
Biomass Advisors announces the release of a Camelina Feedstock Report, an abbreviated version of the consulting firm’s Camelina Aviation Biofuels report released in March (see One Billion Gallons in Camelina Biofuel by 2025).
Meanwhile, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced yesterday that Honeywell Green Jet Fuel powered a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet flight as part of the Navy’s efforts to certify the use of alternative fuels in military aircraft.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet, dubbed the Green Hornet by the Navy, was fueled with a 50/50 mixture of Green Jet Fuel made from camelina oil and petroleum-derived military jet fuel. The flight is one of a series of biofuel test flights that will be conducted by the Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet test program and marks the first flight of a supersonic jet with afterburners flying on a biofuels blend.
The last several months have seen a flurry of activity in the aviation sector, as fuel price volatility and impending greenhouse gas regulations have goaded major airlines to ink deals for renewable jet fuel.
The latest involves British Airways, which struck a deal with Solena Group for 16 million gallons of jet fuel from waste.
The moves highlight the tremendous pressure airlines are under to keep costs low in an increasingly oil constrained world and regulated marketplace. During the last oil spike, fuel expenses, which historically ranged from 10 to 15 percent of US passenger airline operating costs, averaged more than 35 percent in the third quarter of 2008. According to news coming out of the International Air Transport Association, the marketplace for cheap fuel is about to get much more crowded.
Biofuels – made from algae and non-food plants – are emerging as a potentially viable alternative to conventional jet fuels. Although big challenges remain, the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be major.
Earlier this year, a Continental jet accelerated down the runway at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Nothing out of the ordinary for Capt. Rich Jankowski, who countless times in his 38-year career had eased such two-engine Boeing 737-800s into the sky. Except on this experimental flight, one of the engines Jankowski relied on was burning fuel derived from microscopic algae to push the 45-ton aircraft into the air and keep it aloft — a first in aviation history.