I noticed a number of interesting stories in media this week. An article in EurActiv on Wednesday featured an interesting interview with Raffaello Garofalo, the Executive Director of the European Algae Biomass Association (EABA). EABA was launched on 5 June to address the lack of legal framework in Europe for the production of algae-to-biofuels.  Garofalo outlines the potential of algae as a source for biofuels since it does not need productive land that can be used for food, a common accusation that is made of biofuels. It also grows at exponential rates in polluted seawater where most other organisms die. There are even processes by which algae can algae absorb the pollution as a nutrient, allowing the water to be cleaned up and returned back to the ocean. To read the interview in full, click here.

Another article that caught my eye concerns the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). According to a report to be published by RDC Aviation and Point Carbon, the aviation sector could face a shortfall of 77 million tonnes of CO2 when it enters the EU ETS in 2012. The report finds that at the current spot price of €14.40 per tonne of CO2, the cost of having to purchase the necessary credits is likely to be in the region of €1.1 billion, with British Airways and US carriers facing the largest shortfalls.

On a slightly more optimistic note, Gulf Air has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bahrain Government's General Directorate for the Protection of the Environment and Wildlife, in a major step forward in the airline's corporate social responsibility initiatives. Gulf Air Head of Corporate Social Responsibility Sameer Has-san Al Saeed told Gulf Daily News that "It (the MoU) has to be done now because if we leave it any longer then we will lose business; it's as simple as that." Staying in the same geographical region, Qatar Airways has been elected as a member of the International Air Transport Association’s Environment Committee (ENCOM) and also recently joined IATA’s new carbon offsetting programme.  I think all these examples shows that the industry is only stepping up its environmental initiatives in the current economic climate, showing that an economic downturn provides an even greater incentive for a reduction in carbon emissions.

An interesting piece of news in the New York Times yesterday about Sapphire Energy, the supplier of algae-based biojet to the recent flight trials by Japan Airlines and Continental Airlines. Sapphire says that it has revised its forecast on the amount of fuel that it will be producing from algae. By 2011, it will produce 1 million gallons. By 2018, that will rise to 100 million gallons and by 2025 they will be producing more than a billion gallons of fuel derived from algae. Now, this will not just be jet fuel - they are also looking at ground vehicle fuels - but this is a very positive announcement.

Last year, the aviation industry used some 70 billion gallons of Jet A-1 fuel. If just one company can produce 1 billion gallons of sustainable biofuel by 2025, imagine what will happen when the market really starts to open up for biofuel suppliers!

Another story has got me a bit mad. The Guardian today reports that the UK's only wind turbine production facility will close down, as there is not enough demand for wind turbines in the UK at the moment due, in part, to red-tape stopping wind farms being built. I am appalled on two levels:

1. Why is the UK government not doing everything it can to push for renewable energy sources to be brought online as soon as possible? Power generation accounts for over 30% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and with this news, we are throwing away a chance to reduce that number. At least the power generation sector has the option to almost totally decarbonise its production of electricity - the aviation sector doesn't have that option just yet (although the massive amount of work we are doing will help us reduce our 2% of global emissions significantly).
2. Also, where is the green lobby? Why are they not protesting at this news? Why are they not climbing on the Houses of Parliament, or throwing deserts at politicians, like they have about aviation which is a much smaller part of the climate change problem and which has a huge range of emissions-reduction efforts underway? Is it not a high-profile enough target for them?

By losing this UK-based wind turbine production facility, a substantial opportunity to retain green jobs will be lost. Hardly a good sign of the ability to recover from the recession through green technology, is it?

Image by Flickr user Snapperz

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:

• Japan Times
• Mainichi Daily News
• Scientific American
• AFP

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...):

The biofuel test flight on a Continental Airlines 737-800 went better than expected – The pilots reported that the biofuel blend in their number two engine had no discernable performance difference than the normal jet fuel used in their number one engine.

But when they got on the ground, they revealed that they actually used less of the biofuel than of the traditional jet fuel, meaning the biofuel blend had a higher amount of energy-per-litre. This is quite a significant discovery that could indicate that, as well as being less CO2 intensive, we could also start using less fuel per flight when biofuel sources such as algae are introduced – but that is still subject to much testing and analysis. All in all, then this was a very successful test flight.

At the end of the month, we have Japan Airlines flying one of their aircraft on a biofuel blend from a slightly different source – the plant camolina. We will provide updates on that from 30 January. Meanwhile, I leave you with some media coverage of yesterday’s ‘pond scum’-powered flight:

• CNN
• LA Times
• Houston Chronicle
• Scientific American
• Associated Press

The Continental Airlines biofuel flight (designated flight number CO9990) has now landed back at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. As you can see from the flight path it took above, it spent most of the test over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, climbing to 38,000 feet where it performed a series of tests before descending to 25,000 feet and then 19,000 feet and 12,000 feet where it conducted more tests. The aircraft is now going to go through another series of tests on the ground before the analysis can begin into how the fuel performed.

Once the results are in, I will bring you another update.

- Flightpath courtesy of the website Flight Aware

Well, the flight has been in the air for around an hour now and the two pilots and one engineer on board will be undertaking a series of tests to demonstrate how the biofuel performs in the CFM engines. The two-engined aircraft has one engine being flown on regular Jet-A1 fuel and the other engine is using the biofuel mix, which is 50% jet fuel and 50% biofuel from algae and the jatropha plant.

The pilots have climbed to a series of normal flight-level altitudes to monitor how the fuel behaves at the cold temperatures you experience thousands of feet in the air. They will then undertake a number of manoevers that would take place in a normal flight (such as accelerating and decelerating) and also some very unusual ones. For example, they will shut one of the engines down mid-air and re-start it a number of times. This was something that the Air New Zealand test flight last week also did, but they were flying a four-engine 747! These pilots will be flying on just one engine some of the time. But these aircraft are actually able to do that, if absolutely necessary.

For the flight, the aircraft has been re-certified as 'experimental' and the pilots on board are Continental Airline's test crew.

Within the next few minutes, a Boeing 737-800 aircraft will take off from Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport on an historical mission. It is the first test flight in a commercial jet to utilise algae as a biofuel source. Like last week's Air New Zealand flight, this will test the second-generation biofuel's ability to withstand normal operating conditions. However, this is the first such test to be carried out on a twin-engined aircraft.

Algae has been identified as an excellent potential source for aviation biofuel. It can be cultivated in 'factories' built on land not suitable for food supplies, it can be grown using salt or wastewater (and indeed uses less water than other biofuel stocks) and it has a higher energy yield than other biofuel sources (in fact, according to Solix "Since the whole organism converts sunlight into oil, algae can produce more oil in an area the size of a two-car garage than an entire football field of soybeans").

It has been estimated that one pond of algae the size of Belgium or the US State of Maryland could be enough to fuel the aviation industry - although this sounds massive at first, it is in fact several orders of magnitude smaller than the amount of land used for growing soybeans or sugarcane for first-generation biofuels in the USA. And in any case, it could be done on land that is not able to be used for other purposes such as food production or forestry. This CNN clip profiles one algae (or 'pond scum') producer:

I will post updates on the Continental Airlines flight as it happens, with details on the types of tests being carried out and links to any news articles on the ground.

The month from 30 December to 30 January will see the aviation industry conduct three different flight trials where traditional jet fuel will be replaced with biofuels. Biofuels are fuels made from plants or algae and they need plenty of CO2 to grow, thus making it possible for the aviation industry to achieve carbon neutrality in the future. All three flights will mark the first time a particular type of biofuel has been used, sourced from jatropha, algae and camelina.

The first trial will involve an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 that will be using a 50% jatropha mix on one of its Rolls-Royce engines on 30 December. This will be the first flight using jatropha, a bush that grows strongly in arid areas unsuitable for food crops.

The second flight takes place on 7 January when a CFM engine on a Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 will be powered by a mix of algae and jatropha. This will be the first flight using algae, which can be grown in salt water, deserts and other inhospitable places. Algae is an excellent carbon sequestrator, soaking up carbon dioxide.  An area of unused land or water the size of Belgium could provide enough fuel to power the entire fleet according to Boeing.

The flight on 30 January will see Japan Airlines use camelina, jatropha and algae on one Pratt & Whitney engine on a Boeing 747-300. This will be the first time that camelina is used on a flight.  Camelina is a high-energy crop that can be grown in dry areas, poor soil and high altitudes.

Carrier	Aircraft	Partners	Date	Biofuel	Blend
	B747-400	Boeing, GE Aviation	23 Feb 08	Coconut & Babassu	20% one engine
	B747-400	Boeing, Rolls-Royce	30 Dec 08	Jatropha	50% one engine
	B737-800	Boeing, GE Aviation, CFM, Honeywell UOP	7 Jan 09	Algae	50% one engine
	B747-300	Boeing, Pratt&Whitney, Honeywell UOP	30 Jan 09	Camelina	50% one engine
	TBA	Airbus, IAE, Honeywell UOP	TBA	TBA	TBA

The theme running through all these trials is that the biofuels are sustainable; they do not compete for land with food crops. All the biofuels are so-called “drop-in” fuels. In other words, they can be mixed with current jet fuel and can be used in current engines.

These trials will demonstrate that sustainable biofuels offer real possibilities for aviation to reduce its carbon footprint. Governments and NGOs should watch these trials closely and if, as expected, the trials are successful they must get behind these initiatives and support aviation’s initiatives to reduce emissions. They must support research and development into biofuels; they must help with speedy certification so that biofuels can be used commercially; and they must help producers to ramp up production, once the trials are complete.

- Image by Flickr user hpk

A few stories of note today – Continental Airlines has announced the date for its biofuel test flight. Following on from the Virgin flight using coconut and babassu oil earlier this year and ahead of the postponed Air New Zealand flight on a jatropha oil mix, Continental will fly a Boeing 737-800 on a 50/50 algae blend – the first time algae has been tested. The flight is due to take place on 7 January. For more information on the potential of biofuels in aviation, check out our special page on the subject.

Another method for powering an aircraft, although not one available for commercial air transport just yet, is profiled by Inventor Spot – the all-electric aircraft. It runs on batteries and a full charge takes just six hours, providing enough energy to power the one-seat aircraft for 90 minutes at just over 110 kilometres per hour. It is a little short of the 350-seat aircraft that fly sectors over 12 hours long at nearly 1000 kilometres an hour, but every step is a step towards a greener industry I suppose!

And finally, Bob Hope airport in California has unveiled its latest hanger. According to Trendhunter magazine:

The 50,630-square-foot Hangar 25 produces 110% of its energy needs with the photovoltaic solar panels on its roof. That’s 400,000 kWh per year of clean energy. Hangar 25 was built using primarily recycled, locally-sourced materials, and its landscaping uses 51% less water than most buildings.

Treehugger.com goes even further, calling it “quite possibly the coolest hanger on the planet”… Do any of you have suggestions for cooler hangers?!

- Image by Flickr user retaliashun

The race to the White House is not the only race making news at the moment. Last week, I wrote about some of the work being done on a new type of very efficient aircraft engine by Rolls-Royce. Well, it seems that GE Aviation have teamed up with NASA to run similar tests, according to a piece in the blog Earth2Tech. Pratt & Whitney and Snecma are also working on similar engine systems so it looks like we once again have a technology race underway in the aviation industry! But the virtue of competition in this field is that each company pushes the others to be better and ultimately delivers airframe manufacturers and airlines a better (and more efficient) product.

Also in the news over the past couple of days, the UK-based Carbon Trust announced what they say will be the world’s most ambitious algae-based biofuels research project. Their aim is to commercialise a fuel made from algae by 2020. However, the aviation industry has been talking about this and leading research for some time, with Boeing this week saying that they can expect a commercial aviation use for fuel made from algae within perhaps three years. They are well on their way with the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group announced last month which, as Boeing says: “makes commercial aviation the first global transportation sector to voluntarily drive sustainability practices into its fuel supply chain”.

The race to be the first industry making substantial use of sustainable biofuels? We’re ready and up for the challenge!

- Photos from Flickr users Poissantfamily and Peppergrasss

It is interesting to reflect on the past couple of years in the aviation industry.

When I first became involved in aviation at a global level in 2006, no one really believed biofuels would make much of an impact. In fact, there were those who thought biofuels were an impossible sell to aviation, considering the high-energy performance needed in extreme operating conditions.

It is amazing how things change. The accelerated research since 2006 means we have already seen a test flight from Virgin Atlantic, with Air New Zealand undertaking another before the end of this year and both Continental Airlines and ANA planning test flights for next year. We now have airlines planning to replace significant proportions of their jet fuel with sustainable biofuel drop-ins.

An announcement overnight is another in a series of steps to achieve this goal. Boeing has joined with Honeywell, WWF, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Yale University and group of airlines to form the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group. The airlines involved are: Air France, Air New Zealand, ANA, Cargolux, Gulf Air, Japan Airlines, KLM, SAS and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Together, these airlines account for around 15% of world commercial jet fuel use, so their combined buying power has the potential to significantly accelerate the study and development of biofuels.

The project will initially provide in-depth studies into two potential fuel sources: jatropha and algae. The studies will provide the industry with greater understanding of the potential fuel yield, lifecycle carbon output and resources required to produce the fuel.

There has been a bit of media attention about algae as a potential source of aviation fuel - it is very fast growing and could provide the same performance characteristics as the JetA1 fuel currently used.

Jatropha is less well known. This shrub-type plant (shown on the left) is able to grow in very inhospitable conditions, is fast-growing and isn't really a food source for anything - the seeds are toxic. However, when pressed, these seeds produce an oil that can be turned into biodiesel and a sustainable drop-in jet fuel.

The exciting thing about these options is they aren't food sources, nor do they compete for land or water with food crops - vital differences with some first-generation biofuel sources.

UOP, which is a Honeywell company, is also working with Airbus, International Aero Engines and JetBlue Airways on a similar project, developing and testing fuels from biomass.

These projects signify two things: that the industry works together to achieve the goals it needs to; and that air transport is truly committed to the future of flight being sustainable.

With algae, jatropha, switchgrass and other potential sources of fuel, the question is: what exactly will we be filling our aircraft with in 10 years?

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