As Japan Airlines prepares for tomorrow’s biofuel test flight (more on that in a second), USA Today has a great article about bio- and synthetic-fuels which suggests that we could use left-over chicken fat to power our aircraft in the future. Now, this is the first time I’ve heard of this possibility, but according to the USA Today:
Dynamic Fuels, a partnership between Syntroleum and meat-processing giant Tyson Foods of Arkansas, broke ground in October on a $138 million refining facility in Geismar, La. The plant will turn chicken fat, beef tallow, pork lard and grease into liquid fuel. It is expected to begin production in 2010 and turn out about 75 million gallons of fuel a year, says Ron Stinebaugh, Syntroleum's senior vice president of finance.
It’s an interesting notion… let’s see how far it will fly, but I would probably place my bets on other sources that can be more sustainably grown. Of course, the aviation industry is looking at a variety of sources and we probably won’t end up with a single biofuel solution, so re-using oil products that would otherwise go to waste may be an option! The question being asked on the USA Today panels is whether airports will now start smelling like fried chicken fast food outlets!
Back to more regular examples of a potential biofuel – the Japan Airlines test flight set to take off at 1150 in Tokyo tomorrow morning (0250 GMT). This 747-300 will have its number three engine fuelled by a mix of 50% jet fuel and 50% sustainable biofuel. The biofuel is a mix of three different sources: camelina, jatropha and algae. This is the first test flight to use camelina and the first to be a combination of three biofuel sources. The photo above shows technicians filling the #3 engine tank with the biofuel/jet fuel mix today.
Over the next few hours, I will update on the plans for the flight and provide details of the fuel feed stock being used… stay tuned!
Update 1
The flight is around nine hours away now and I thought I would fill you in a bit on the main biofuel crop being used on this flight - camelina. The plant is also known as gold-of-pleasure and German sesame, among other things. It has been grown as a crop by farmers in Europe for at least 3,000 years and one of the oldest places it has been found is just a small distance from where I am in Switzerland. Prior to electricity and gas, the oil from its seeds was harvested to produce oil lamp and it is also used as a cooking oil, although has largely been replaced by other crops.
Its seeds contain a very high oil content and it can be grown in rotation with other food crops such as wheat and cereal, in moderate climates such as the US, Europe and Central Asia. It is estimated that the US state of Montana alone could support between two and three million acres of camelina, generating 200 to 300 million gallons of oil each year.
Although it looks nothing like them, it comes from the same family as cauliflower, radish and cabbage! The fact that it can be grown in the off-season from food supply crops and on the marginal land (as well as being drought-resistant), makes camelina a good source of sustainable aviation biofuel. For this flight, the camelina oil was provided by Sustainable Oils from the USA. It will be mixed with jatropha provided by Terasol Energy and a small amount of algae oil supplied by Sapphire Energy. These have been refined and blended together with Jet-A1 by Honeywell UOP - a company that specialises in refining biofuel. The ability to blend supplies from different sources will enable the aviation industry to have a more secure supply and regional diversity. It is very unlikely that we will only use one type of biofuel in the future.
Update 2
The test flight took off at 1150 JST and will last for an hour and a half, flying north from Tokyo's Haneda Airport to perform the tests over the ocean to the east of Sendai:
Update 3
The flight has now landed and, following a series of tests, the pilots have reported that there was no difference in performance between the engines using normal jet fuel and the #3 engine powered by the biofuel blend. The crew, led by Captain Keiji Kobayashi, performed a series of tests at different altitudes, including shutting the engine down mid-flight and re-starting it, accelerating and decelerating rapidly. From now, more testing and analysis will be carried out to determine how the biofuel impacted on the internal workings of the Pratt & Whitney JT9D engine.
Update 4
Japan Airlines has issued their post-flight media release. For us at the Air Transport Action Group, this flight has shown that working together is key to aviation's green future. Paul Steele, our executive director said:
“In flying a test using three types of biofuel, Japan Airlines will demonstrate how aviation is able to pursue a range of biofuel options, not just rely on one source. This is important as we look to sustainable biofuels as an alternative energy source for aviation. The ability to blend supplies from different sources will enable a more secure supply and regional diversity.”
Over the next few hours, I will post some of the media coverage from the JAL flight here.
Update 5
I would like to share with you a quote from one of the background notes for the Japan Airlines flight on the sustainable nature of the biofuel source camelina:
As a rotation crop with wheat, camelina grows on existing farmland, but does not compete with food crops. Rather, farmers plant camelina on portions of their land that would otherwise be “fallow” (non-planted) as part of their normal crop rotation program. One could argue that the use of camelina as part of a crop rotation is the very definition of sustainability, as it provides growers an opportunity to diversify their crop base and reduce mono-cropping (planting the same crop year after year) which has been shown to degrade soil and reduce yields.
This is a very important point, as we need to be looking at issues such as this to determine the sustainability of any biofuel supply for the industry. While we're at it, here is a picture of the seeds from camelina - amazing to think that they are so rich in oil that it can power a 747 engine!
Update 6
Selected media coverage from the JAL flight:
And a clip of the flight on YouTube (the quality is not great and there is no sound, but I thought I would post it anyway...):
I have been looking looking around for this kind of information. Will you post some more in future? I'll be grateful if you will.