Biofuels Archives - Golf Hotel Whiskey

British Airways biofuel plant set to open in 2015

It appears that a British Airways jet biofuel plant known as the GreenSky project is set for take off by 2015 with the airline recently announcing that it has committed to buy the 50,000 ton output of the facility at market-competitive prices over a 10-year period. The deal had originally been announced back in 2010 with US based Solena who would construct a biofuel plant in East London by 2014. The plant would then produce 16 million gallons of jet fuel annually from 500,000 tons of waste that would otherwise end up in British landfills. That’s enough biofuel to power all of British Airways flights from London City Airport.

Forbes contributor Peter Kelly-Detwiler has written some detail about the process known as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis that will be used to make the jet biofuel. That process was discovered some 90 years ago by German scientists and involves converting a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide into liquid fuels. During World War II, the process was used to keep the German war effort going (accounting for an estimated 9% of German war production of fuels and 25% of the automobile fuel) and later it was used by South Africa when it was under sanctions during the apartheid era.

The facility itself will be the first of its type in the UK and British Airways chief executive Keith Williams says it will help the airline achieve its vision of making sustainable aviation fuel a reality by 2015. In addition, the plant is part of British Airways’ goal to have “Carbon Neutral” growth from 2020 with biofuels making up 2% of the company’s fuel.

British Airways is not the only airline looking into biofuels as KLM, Lufthansa and United Airlines are also apparently taking the plunge as well. No word on when biofuel may start powering British general aviation, but certainly the GreenSky project is a step towards more sustainable commercial aviation.

Are biofuels the future of green aviation?

Thomson Airways became the first UK airline to fly customers on sustainable biofuel when flight TOM 7446 flew from Birmingham to Arrecife on October 6th. To celebrate they prepared this cool infographic.

There was a really interesting podcast about the future of energy on NPR’s Planet Money recently which suggests we need to make some really big changes to make any kind of dent in CO2 output.

New general aviation engine that can run on biofuels

On an interesting note, Durban South Africa-based ADEPT Airmotive has recently announced that they have developed the world’s first modern GA engine that runs on a range of fuels. In addition to running on normal unleaded petrol (MOGAS) or standard aviation fuel (AVGAS), the ADEPT 320T engine can also operate on environmentally friendly alternatives like bio fuel or liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Other benefits of the new engine include:

The ability to produce 320 horsepower.
The lowest lead, nitrous oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and noise levels – setting itself apart from existing technology and setting benchmarks for the GA industry.
An installed weight of 158 kilograms. Hence, the engine is roughly 30% lighter than traditional piston engines of comparable horsepower.
Fuel efficiencies of up to 30% better than conventional GA powerplants.

ADEPT is now in discussion with South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology’s (DST) Technology Innovation Agency and Trade and Investment KZN for funding in order to ramp up to full production.

Algae as aviation fuel?

Biofuels and biofuel for aircraft are a topics that periodically come up – especially whenever oil prices go through the roof (like last year). One of the potential fuels that sometimes gets promoted for mass production is algae because after all, its renewable and producing it won’t harm current food supplies (a BIG problem with other biofuels such as corn or sugar cane based ones).

Hence Brett, the blogger behind the Cranky Flier blog, recently had an interesting discussion with the President and CEO of OriginOil about their algae oil product and its potential use as aviation fuel. Apparently, algae oil is not all hype and its been proven that algae can be turned into oil. However, it usually takes a tremendous amount of energy and chemicals to produce the fuel. And although OriginOil uses a different process that takes a tremendous amount of water, Brett noted that on one acre:

You probably will have about 40% of it as actual tank capacity for growing. In that environment, you will turn out about 63,000 gallons per year for that acre. How many airplanes can that power?

It’ll keep a 747 in the air for about 18 hours. That’s it.

In other words, don’t expect to see algae-powered airplanes anytime in the immediate future. And while OriginOil believes that it will take about 5 years before a sustainable algae oil industry develops, the price of the fuel (at best, US$8 per gallon of oil and with some people thinking it will be more like US$12 or US$14 per gallon) will largely remain prohibitive for use by aviation.