It doesn't really state if this fuel can REPLACE jet-A ?

Actually, that was a pretty crappy article. I try and pull the more meaningful ones out of my assorted news feeds, but I goofed on that one. All it says is that Boeing, Virgin and Quantas agreed to use 5% biofuel by 2015 in Australia (only I think) to avoid a carbon tax put there by the local government. It's a badly written article because it does not say much about that or even provide the name of the consortium. 5% isn't much biofuel either and I bet they have no support for the claim it is going to be made from camelina or any of a hundred other feedstocks.

What I do think you can get from articles like this one however badly written may be, is that some activity is going on around the world in terms of the development of biofuels and the politics that will affect them. Barring a major upset to the political or market stability of the present legacy oil markets, the more likely scenario for adoption of biofuels occurs across a lifetime or two. The investment costs are high and the costs of a gallon of biofuel is still way too high for widespread adoption.

New Standards Are Here, But How Will Aviation Biofuel Market Evolve?

(S. Leone, 7/18, RenewableEnergyWorld) New Hampshire, USA -- Jim Rekoske is a scientist and a businessman, so he doesn't much care for predictions. His expertise, though, is in a field that's fueled by predictions. As vice president and general manager of Honeywell’s UOP renewable energy and chemicals business, Rekoske is helping lead an effort that has a growing demand, yet so far little supply. To some, his predictions may seem bold, but so is the cause -- to create a clean energy market that will supply the fuel that powers the future of aviation. “The demand is there,” he said. “The ability to grow these oils in a way that does not impact the food chain also exists. There really is no reason [this couldn’t work] other than the normal inertia, which is present at the beginning of any new endeavor. So we need to overcome that normal inertia.” If the industry can get past that resistance, Rekoske envisions 1 to 1.5 billion gallons a year of plant-based oil being converted to jet fuels and being blended at up to a 50 percent mix with the 65 to 70 billion gallons of conventional jet fuel produced each year. Established industries, by and large, are not in the business of opening their doors to competition. That’s why the growing aviation biofuels industry is looking at policy and standards as avenues to a growing market. The effort to create an aviation biofuel market received a major boost earlier this month when ASTM International updated its aviation fuel standard to allow renewable fuels to be blended at up to 50 percent with conventional fuels for commercial travel. For Honeywell and others banking on demand, the revamped standards were the latest in a string of positive signs for the burgeoning industry. The European Union is trying to get airlines covered under its Emissions Trading Scheme, which has angered some governments that don’t want their businesses subject to a European cap-and-trade market. Depending on the outcome, says Rekoske, there could be a substantial boost for biofuels as airlines work to cut their emissions, which account for about 2 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. In August, Air China will embark on its first flight with biofuels grown in China through a partnership between Petro China and UOP. The hope for biofuel producers is that the Chinese government will use that event to put stronger emissions programs into place, which could further boost the demand and ultimately the supply...

US Air Force: We want to use biofuels.

(AFP, 7/19) WASHINGTON — The US Air Force is ready to switch to biofuels to help power its warplanes but the price of alternative fuels remains too high, military officials said Tuesday. Anxious to reduce its reliance on oil, the Air Force has approved the use of synthetic fuels for nearly all its aircraft and expects to get the green light for biofuels by the end of 2012, Undersecretary Erin Conaton said. "The big thing we're trying to do is to send a clear message to industry that the Air Force wants to be in a position to purchase biofuels and to use that operationally for our fleet," Conaton told AFP. "But in order to do that, we need industry to be able to produce in the quantities we need at a cost-competitive price." Biofuels cost a prohibitive $35 a gallon, about 10 times the price of conventional jet fuel, or JP-8. "The biofuels that are available now are just nowhere near the cost of what we can buy JP-8 for," Conaton said. With the biofuels industry still in need of more private investment, the US military has joined forces with commercial airlines "to try to send the right message" to the alternative fuels industry, she said. "We're ready whenever they're ready to produce it." Tests have shown fighter aircraft and cargo planes can fly on a blend of biofuels and traditional jet fuel with no sacrifice in speed or performance, she said. Conaton spoke as biofuels industry representatives and military officials gathered for an energy conference Tuesday in Washington where alternative fuels will feature high on the agenda. US officials see the country's dependence on foreign oil as a national security risk and an increasing financial burden. To promote energy "security," the Air Force has set a goal to have half of its domestic fuel needs drawn from alternative sources by 2016. The biofuels tested on military aircraft, known as hydroprocessed renewable jet fuel, are derived from the camelina plant, animal fat and various waste oils...

U.S. assists two crop-for-aviation-fuel projects.

* Two companies will use camelina to make bio jet fuel
* Fuel is biggest cost for U.S. airlines
* Camelina is little-grown crop, seeds are high in oil
* Two other second-generation biofuel projects get aid

(7/26, Reuters) Farmers in four states in the U.S. West can qualify for a federal cost-sharing payment if they grow camelina, an oilseed, for conversion into jet fuel, the government said on Tuesday. The assistance would encourage large-scale production -- up to 51,000 acres (21,000 hectares) -- of camelina for sale to aviation biofuel makers AltAir Fuels LLC, of Seattle, and Beaver Biodiesel LLC, of Portland, Oregon. It would be the first time the Agriculture Department subsidized an aviation bio-crop. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the announcement coincided with the one-year anniversary of an initiative by the U.S. Agriculture Department, Boeing Co (BA.N) and the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, to bring bio jet fuels to market. AltAir aims for a drop-in substitute for traditional jet fuels with production beginning in late 2012 in Bakersfield, California, and in 2014 at Tacoma, Washington...

Companies Testify On Plans To Build Jet Biofuel Plants.

(Seattle Times, 7/29, Bernton) reports, "Leaders of two Seattle-based companies testified Thursday before a US Senate subcommittee about plans to build plants in Washington state to produce jet biofuel that can be blended in equal parts with traditional jet fuels." The testimony Wednesday by AltAir Fuels and Imperium Renewables "underscored the recent progress in moving from a test phase for aviation biofuel to a new phase focused on how to spur production." Billy Golver, a Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president, "said an important milestone for biofuels use in commercial jet aircraft was reached on July 1 as the 50 percent blend gained international certification by ASTM International, a global standards-setting organization."

Never heard of this and thought of sharing. Not sure if jet fuel is among the fuels they can make but interesting nonetheless.

Carbon Recycling: Mining the Air for Fuel

Recycling bottles, cans, and newspapers is on any short list of simple actions for a cleaner environment. If only it were as easy to collect and reuse carbon dioxide—that greenhouse gas waste product that the world is generating in huge volume each day by burning fossil fuels.

In fact, a handful of start-up companies and researchers are aiming to do just that.

Recycling carbon dioxide is a great deal more involved than setting out separate bins for glass, aluminum, and paper. But many scientists believe that it is not only worth the effort, but a crucial endeavor. The climate change threat to the planet is now so great, they argue, that any effort to address the problem will have to include so-called "carbon negative" technologies. That means actually sucking the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and doing something productive with it.

The idea of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal power plants or oil facilities and storing it underground has gotten plenty of attention. Several pilot projects are operating or under construction, although a major project in West Virginia was abandoned last month due to cost concerns.

There has been less focus on the idea of actually reusing or recycling CO2. But science has long known that it’s possible to recombine carbon from CO2 with hydrogen from water to make hydrocarbons—in other words, to make familiar fuels such as gasoline. The problem, ironically, has been that the process requires a lot of energy.

But pioneering researchers and entrepreneurs argue the technology is close at hand for recycling CO2 back into fuel for use in today’s engines. It might even involve technology to absorb carbon dioxide directly out of the air, instead of out of coal plant flue gas. (See related story, "Out of Thin Air: The Quest to Capture Carbon Dioxide") Instead of drilling for oil to power cars and trucks, they say, we could be pulling the ingredients to make hydrocarbons out of thin air.

"You have all this CO2—it’s nasty stuff—what are you going to do with it?" asks Byron Elton, chief executive of Carbon Sciences, a Santa Barbara, California start-up. "People are saying, ‘Compress it, hide it.’ We’re saying, ‘No, give it to us and we can turn it back into gasoline.’ "

Peter Eisenberger, a physicist who founded the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is cofounder of Global Thermostat, a company that is working on technology to capture carbon dioxide from air with the aim of recycling, not storage, in mind. "In my opinion, closing the carbon cycle and having the technology to combine CO2 and hydrogen is a wonderful future," Eisenberger says. "Imagine a future where the major inputs for fuel are water and CO2."

Energy In, Energy Out

Of course, the oil drilled and pumped from underground holds the energy of eons' worth of sunlight energy collected by plants and stored as organic matter. Over millions of years of heat and pressure, the energy in that organic matter has been further concentrated to yield hydrocarbons such as oil, natural gas, and coal.

(Related: "Is Motor Oil a Renewable Resource? Re-Refiners Say Yes")

Anyone who wants to create hydrocarbon fuel above ground will have to supply the energy to isolate the hydrogen and carbon atoms and put them together. "There’s no free lunch," says Hans Ziock, a technical staff member at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory, coauthor of a white paper on carbon capture from air.

"You have to put energy in to re-create the fuel," he explains. "And because re-creation is never 100 percent efficient, you end up putting more energy in than you get out." Due to the "energy penalty" of creating hydrocarbon fuel indirectly, he says, it has always made more sense for society to use the liquid fuels made directly from crude oil as long as crude oil is available. "If nature has done this for you for free, why not use it?" says Ziock.

However, in a world that is now pumping its crude oil from ultra-deep water, squeezing it from tar sands, and looking for it beneath Arctic frontiers, the time may be ripe for alternatives. Ziock says he believes the hope for greater domestic self-sufficiency for fuel alone makes research into carbon dioxide recycling worthwhile. But he warns that as a means to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the benefits of this approach will be limited unless the energy to create the hydrocarbon fuel comes from a source other than the burning of more fossil fuel.

(Related: "Photos: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers")

That’s why the focus of the "Sunshine to Petrol" project at U.S. DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California, has been on creating a high-efficiency chemical heat engine based on concentrated solar energy to power its process for making fuel.

"Hydrocarbon fuel has a lot of energy packed in," says Ellen Stechel, who manages the Sandia project. "All the energy came from the sun, and must again come from the sun—just faster and with greater efficiency." To create hydrocarbon fuel, she says it is possible to use solar energy, just as nature does. "But we need to collect it from a wide area to pack it into something very dense," she explains. "People say the sun is free, and that’s true, but the collectors to collect all that sun are not free."

(Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Solar Power")

The prototype solar reactor that the Sandia researchers have developed is designed to use a huge array of mirrors to collect and concentrate the sunlight into a very strong beam that is funneled onto metal oxide rings inside each reactor. The rings rotate in and out of the sunlight, heating to a temperature of more than 2,550°F (1,400°C), and then cooling to less than 2,010°F (1,100°C). These rings are then exposed either to carbon dioxide or to water. At the high temperature, the metal oxide rings release some oxygen and at the lower temperature the rings steal oxygen atoms from either the CO2 or the H2O molecules. That thermochemical reaction leaves behind carbon monoxide or hydrogen gas (the mixture is often called "syngas")—the building blocks of hydrocarbon fuel.

The Sandia prototype’s solar collector has an area of about 20 square meters (215 square feet) for a reactor the size of a beer keg, Stechel says. About 300,000 acres (121,400 hectares) of mirrors would be required to collect enough sunshine to make the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil per day, she says. (The world currently consumes about 86 million barrels per day of petroleum and other liquid fuels, including biofuels.)

Stechel says that durability of the hardware remains an issue, and the researchers are continuing to work on making the system as efficient as possible so it can be commercially successful and used on a large scale.

Catalyst for Change

Elton’s firm, Carbon Sciences, focuses on the post-collection phase: turning carbon into fuel. It does this by combining CO2 with natural gas in the presence of a proprietary metallic catalyst it has developed and licensed. (The company says it is made of the common metals, nickel and cobalt, supported by aluminum and magnesium.)

Carbon Sciences says its test facility is successfully melding CO2 with methane (the primary constituent of natural gas) to produce a syngas that can be converted into ordinary fuels.

The process of turning syngas into transportation fuel is a well-established technology, and there are already commercial gas-to-liquids facilities in the world. But those processes rely on steam or oxidation to produce the syngas. Carbon Sciences argues that its process—CO2 reforming, or dry reforming, of natural gas—would be a game changer because it would produce fuel while using up waste CO2 that otherwise would be emitted to the atmosphere. Also, says Elton, using readily available CO2 as a reactant should make capital and operating costs significantly lower than current commercial approaches that use oxygen, since that’s expensive and capital-intensive.

"We believe our approach will be the key to cost-effective transformation of greenhouse gases to fuel on a global scale," he says.

Although there have been efforts at dry reforming in the past, Carbon Sciences says its catalyst is uniquely robust and able to stand up to the harsh industrial process of making the fuel. The catalyst also is comprised of more affordable and abundant metals than those used in earlier efforts.

Of course, because the fuel produced will be a drop-in replacement for ordinary gasoline and diesel, driving will still release CO2 to the atmosphere. But Elton says there are significant advantages in using recycled fuel. "The carbon . . . is used twice, instead of it going into the air," he says. "It also finally addresses the issue of energy security"—as the fuel can be made domestically from two abundant resources in the United States—CO2 and natural gas.

Outside scientists say the CO2 advantages of the system will depend on how it is designed, including where it gets its energy. Elton says minimizing net energy will be a high priority, with the potential for an integrated system that reuses some of the energy or fuel created in the process. He maintains that Carbon Sciences’ process for creating fuel is CO2-neutral, in contrast to the refining of ordinary crude oil into gasoline, which results in energy use that releases CO2 before the fuel even gets to the gas tank. After encouraging test results earlier this year, Elton said in July that his company is working on a demonstration project to produce samples of diesel fuel that can be used by existing diesel vehicles, like trucks and buses.

It is important to note that in the reforming process, natural gas provides some of the hydrocarbons in the fuel. Other efforts at CO2 recycling-into-fuel aim to get all of the hydrocarbons from CO2 alone.

In the United Kingdom, Air Fuel Synthesis aims to use atmospheric CO2 and wind energy to produce aviation fuels in a concept demonstration at an initial rate of 1 liter (about one-quarter gallon) per day.

Filling Up With Renewables

Although the challenges are great, the research is important, says a policy brief issued last month by the Centre for Low-Carbon Futures in England. Researchers from the University of Sheffield and the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands said that what they call "Carbon Capture and Utilization" could overcome many of the drawbacks of carbon capture and storage, including the difficulty in finding enough underground storage space, the possibility of leakage, long-term liability issues, and problems with public acceptance. Creating something of value also would help offset the costs of carbon capture, the researchers said.

And creating liquid fuels through carbon recycling could be important in the long run for a society that aims to reduce its dependence on oil. Although there’s been much excitement about electric cars, the report noted that electric batteries still can’t provide the needed range for aviation and long-haul sea and road transport. The recycling of CO2 could be the path for putting renewable energy into the fuel tanks of ordinary combustion engines, the report said.

That’s why Stechel, of Sandia, says the benefits of "reversing combustion" or "closing the cycle" on CO2 could be enormous. "We could have a technology that could produce the same fuels we get from petroleum and preserve today’s infrastructure," she says, "fuels that could go into the vehicles of today as well as the ones of tomorrow."

Obama Administration Pledges $510 Million for Biofuels

(S. Pope, eFlying, 8/18/11) The Obama Administration this week announced a plan to invest up to $510 million over three years in advanced drop-in aviation and marine biofuels as part of an initiative to cut America's dependency on foreign oil. President Obama announced Tuesday that the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy will be investing in partnerships with the private sector to produce biofuels for commercial and military transportation. With the announcement, the federal government becomes a major investor in aviation biofuels, which are alternative aviation fuels that can be mixed with existing jet fuels to provide the same or more efficient performance, and marine biofuels, both of which can be used effectively for commercial and military purposes. The investment will also require a one-to-one match of cost sharing from the private sector...

Cantwell touts camelina crop to farmers

(8/24/11, AP) — Farmers are being urged to join a federal program that pays them to grow camelina, a crop that some researchers consider a potential alternative to overseas oil. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the new U.S. Department of Agriculture effort is intended to jump-start the creation of a camelina-to-fuel industry. But The Spokesman-Review reported Wednesday that unless many more Western U.S. farmers grow camelina, few companies will invest money in production facilities to turn camelina oil into biodiesel or "green" aviation fuel...

U.S. Moves To Kick-Start Biofuels Industry

(8/23/11, G. Warwick, AviationWeek) The aerospace industry will be asked shortly for ideas on how $510 million in government money should be spent over the next three years to build an aviation and marine biofuels supply chain in the U.S. It also will be asked how much money it is willing to put into what the government intends to be a public/private partnership. The pending release of a request for proposals (RFP) follows last week’s signing of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Navy and the Energy and Agriculture departments to begin a cooperative effort to support development of a commercial biofuels industry. Each of three agencies is putting $170 million in existing funding into the initiative to help pay for the construction or conversion of refineries for the production of biofuels that are drop-in replacements for petroleum-based aviation and marine fuels. “The joint plan will require substantial cost-share from private industry of at least a one-to-one match,” the White House said in a statement announcing the agreement last week. The government will not specify what fuels or feedstocks should be funded. “We are neutral on what the fuel is,” says Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. “We will see what industry comes back with.” The key requirements are that the biofuels be drop-in replacements, domestically produced and geographically distributed, priced competitively with petroleum, with a lower carbon footprint, and do not take land out of food production, he says...

Seems like every week the feedstock for this changes to some other source...

Biofuel Initiatives...

(9/7, G.Warwick, Aviationweek) Engine manufacturer General Electric has joined an Australian consortium established to develop and commercialize aviation biofuel derived from native eucalyptus trees. The consortium includes Virgin Australia, Canadian biofuels company Dynamotive Energy Systems, its Australian licensee Renewable Oil Corp., and the national Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Center. The venture's focus is on converting mallee, or multi-stemmed, eucalypt trees into biofuel, using a fast pyrolysis process developed by Dynamotive. Pyrolysis produces a “bio-crude” oil by rapidly heating biomass to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen. The consortium plans to have a pilot biofuel production plant operating in Australia by 2012, and to have a commercial-scale plant operational by as early as 2014. GE will assist with development and certification of the fuel. Future Farm Industries, a joint venture of southern Australia’s leading agricultural R&D organizations, will conduct the required R&D for on-farm mallee production under its “energy tree cropping" initiative. GE Aviation, meanwhile, has participated in test flights in Brazil of an Embraer 170 with both GE CF34-8E engines fueled by a 50:50 blend of biofuel and conventional jet fuel. The hydro-processed fuel was derived from camelina...


San Diego-based company to plant 75,000 acres of jatropha in Brazil

(9/14, S. Neilsen, Bloomberg) Closely held SG Biofuels, also supported by the Inter- American Development Bank, will produce unrefined jatropha oil that will sell for $75 a barrel, President Kirk Haney said in an interview yesterday. Refined jet fuel cost about $126 a barrel in New York Harbor spot market on Sept. 12, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. High petroleum prices and government pressure to lower greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change are prompting airlines to experiment with plant-derived fuels. Grupo Aeromexico SAB de CV flew the first commercial transcontinental flight with a plant oil-kerosene blend on Aug. 2. Test flights have shown that planes can fly on fuel made with weeds, wood chips and algae. Jatropha “is the most practical way of blending with jet fuel today,” Haney said. The plant produces inedible oil and grows well in low-quality soils. The development of higher-yielding seeds is expected to bring prices down to $38 a barrel in ten years, he said. Manufacturing so-called bio-kerosene from jatropha oil is already “cost-effective” with crude oil prices at $112 a barrel, he said. SG Biofuels will develop its plantations with Bioventures Brasil in west-central Brazil, according to the statement. The seeds will be crushed into 45 million liters (11.9 million gallons) of oil once the plantations reach maturity in 2015 and then processed into fuel in the state of Sao Paulo, Haney said...

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Not a jet, but...

Navy Completes Unmanned Biofuel Flight.

(P. Bergqvist, 11/04, Flying)

The United States military is continuing its quest for a greener aircraft fleet and the Navy has now completed the first biofuel flight in an unmanned helicopter – an MQ-8B Fire Scout. Powered by a blend of JP-5 aviation fuel and a plant-based fuel, the helicopter took off from the Naval Air Station Patuxent River’s Webster Field in St. Inigoes, Maryland, controlled by the Navy’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Directorate. The Naval Air Systems Command Public Affairs office claims the biofuel blend “reduces carbon dioxide output by 75 percent compared to conventional aviation fuel.” Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, program executive officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons said, “I am very pleased we can add MQ-8B to the list of successful bioflights completed at Pax River this year, bringing us one step closer to achieving the Navy’s energy goals.” One such goal is the Navy’s Great Green Fleet initiative to power its whole fleet of aircraft, ships and submarines with biofuels by 2016. Seven types of Naval aircraft, including the Blue Angels’ F/A-18s, have been tested so far. The plant-based portion of the fuel blend used in the Fire Scout flight is from the camelina plant, a member of the mustard family that has also been used as massage oil, cooking oil and lamp fuel. Camelina-based biofuel has also been successfully tested in business jets and the commercial airlines...

Airlines Weigh the Advantages of Using More Biofuel


(NYTimes,B. Wassener, 10/09/11) HONG KONG — The world’s airlines will carry 2.8 billion passengers and 46 million tons of freight this year. They will burn somewhere between 210 million and 220 million tons of fuel and generate 650 million tons of carbon emissions in the process. Strong growth, particularly in Asia, will see to it that those numbers keep rising. Add to that the fact that the price of fuel is likely to keep rising and that the pressure to reduce fuel emissions has never been higher, and what you get is a huge increase in recent years in the airline industry’s efforts to develop biofuels capable of powering aircraft.The speed of the progress in recent years has been remarkable, leaving many of the airline and aviation executives who gathered in Hong Kong for a conference on aviation and the environment in late September shaking their heads in near disbelief.
“I have been amazed at how quickly we moved forward,” said Tony Tyler, the former chief executive of Cathay Pacific, who took the helm of the International Air Transport Association in July. Just a few years ago, Mr. Tyler said, the concept of using biofuels to help power aircraft seemed “very pie-in-the-sky and futuristic.” Now, he said, biofuels are no longer just theory — they are a reality. Less than half a decade has passed since a handful of carriers staged the first test flights using fuel derived from plants. At least six airlines, including KLM, Lufthansa and Finnair, have now used biofuel on flights carrying passengers. Many of the executives who attended the recent conference broadly agreed that significant amounts of biofuels could find their way into aircraft tanks during the course of the next decade. This would help the airline industry achieve its goal of “carbon neutral” growth — in other words, of increasing the business but without increasing emissions — by 2020. Even more ambitious, the industry aims to halve emissions by 2050.As airlines currently account for about 2 percent of all man-made carbon emissions, this is an important factor in the drive to reduce global emissions. Much progress has already been made on fuel efficiency. Improved designs and materials mean that aircraft and engines today are 70 percent more fuel efficient than those built 40 years ago, said Mr. Tyler of International Air Transport. But aviation efficiency can go only so far, so biofuels are a key building block in the drive to lower emissions. “I believe that the most significant leap forward in the industry’s environmental performance in the coming years will be the commercial use of sustainable biofuels,” Mr. Tyler said. Now, however, comes the other hard part: getting enough of the stuff to airlines, at a competitive price and without running into trouble on issues like land and water supply.
At present, aviation biofuels exist only in minuscule amounts and cost three to five times as much as conventional jet fuel, according to Paul Steele, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group, a nonprofit association that includes a wide range of aviation industry players. (The International Air Transport Association estimates that the airline industry’s total fuel bill will top $200 billion next year.) The oil companies that supply carriers with traditional jet fuel have yet to embrace biofuels in a major way. A host of small outfits, like Cosmo Biofuels in Malaysia, are working to develop jet fuel from various plant sources. But the process takes time and does not enjoy government support of the kind seen for biodiesel, which is used in cars..."

I get about 150 pounds of fuel per pax, about 23 gallons of Jet-A. Much more efficient than I would have imagined.

And that's factoring in the freight flying for free.

Using the data from the article, I get 157 lbs of Jet A per passenger not counting any freight. You are beating the average by 7 pounds fuel per passenger, or 4.46% less. Pretty good.

Military Working Towards Using Biofuels In Battle.

(Bloomberg News 10/19, Morales, Downing) reported, "Biofuels face their biggest test yet -- whether they can power fighter jets and tanks in battle at prices the world's best-funded military can afford." The article notes that the Army, Navy, and the Air Force are looking to end their dependence on oil, with the USAF "set to certify all of its 40-plus aircraft models to burn fuels derived from waste oils and plants by 2013, three years ahead of target, Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary Kevin Geiss said." Furthermore, these military test results have been given to commercial airlines and "helped ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing & Materials, in July approve the fuels for use in commercial planes."

Turning wood into oil, in two simple steps | Reuters

(Reuters) - Efficiency and simplicity have long eluded renewable-fuel researchers, but a Maine scientist has developed a two-step process he says can make oil from the cellulose in wood fiber.

This process, far less complex than competing methods, creates an oil that can be refined into gasoline, jet fuel or diesel and removes nearly all oxygen -- the enemy of fuel efficiency.

"It's unique and it's simple," said Clay Wheeler, the University of Maine chemical engineering professor who discovered the process last year with two undergraduates. "This is important because the more complex the technology, the more expensive it's going to be."

In heavily wooded Maine, logging produces a lot of scrap tree stumps, tops and branches that are unusable for making lumber or paper.

While additional research is needed, if Wheeler's process is ultimately able to be commercially developed, it could help forest-rich states generate their own fuel from that scrap.

For a video on the process, click on: link.reuters.com/vak54s

In the first step of Wheeler's process, wood is bathed in sulfuric acid, isolating the sugars in cellulose and producing an energy-intense organic acid mixture.

That mixture is then heated with calcium hydroxide in a reactor to 450 degrees Celsius (840 Fahrenheit), a step that removes oxygen.

What drips out is a hydrocarbon liquid that chemically mimics crude oil.

For every ton of cellulose processed, Wheeler is able to make about 1.25 barrels of oil equivalent, a unit of energy comparable to the amount of energy produced by burning one barrel of crude oil.

The acids and calcium hydroxide are recycled at the end of the process, cutting costs, he said.

The most expensive part is the wood itself, Wheeler said. At current wood biomass prices, he acknowledged his process is not economically competitive with traditional crude oil refining.

"But we anticipate that the value of the fuel will continue to increase as petroleum becomes more scarce," he said.

The economic viability of the project is a source of concern, said Andrew Soare, an analyst who tracks alternative fuel technologies at Lux Research, a technology advisory firm.

"Further understanding of costs is key to this reaction," Soare said. "I think this process certainly does have a chance to go somewhere."

Paul Bryan, program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy's Biomass Program, said a project's economics are a key factor for any future funding support.

"If the outputs are a lot more valuable than the inputs, that's the first step to success," he said.

The journal Green Chemistry plans to publish a study later this year on Wheeler's process, which does not use catalysts or bacteria as most other alternative fuel methods do.

Wheeler is now studying just what makes his process tick. He accidentally stumbled upon it 11 months ago while trying different reactions with biomass and acids.

He does not know exactly what happens inside the reactor during the second phase, when the oil is actually produced, but he knows what he can make with it.

During a recent tour of his Maine laboratory, Wheeler refined his fuel into gasoline that can be used in existing engines.

"We've had independent laboratories test this, and without any upgrading, it was 82-octane gasoline," Wheeler said.

That is a lower octane rating than you find at gas stations -- most are at least 87 -- but traditional crude oil refining uses several steps to reach that mark.

"We think we can get there," Wheeler said of the higher octane rating.

NEW INNOVATIONS AND PRODUCTS

Even though the United States has 10 percent of the world's forest land, its pulp and paper industry has slowly declined in the past 50 years due to shrinking paper demand.

In August, paper shipments fell 6.4 percent from the same month last year and box production slipped 2.7 percent, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.

Wheeler's process could entice the paper industry to take a second look at Maine, Oregon and other timber-rich states.

"This is the kind of stuff you could do in a pulp and paper mill," Wheeler said. "Paper plants are already used to high temperatures."

University of Maine officials are hoping Wheeler's process creates jobs in a state with a 7.6 percent unemployment rate.

"These mills are the heart of communities in Maine and they need new innovations and products," said Renee Kelly, director of economic development initiatives at the university. "Pulp and paper are very cyclical, commodity businesses."

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder and David Fazekas; editing by Andre Grenon)

Skeptics Question Airline Biofuels

(10/21/11, R. Wall, AviationWeek) When it comes to operating airliners with a biofuel blend, it is becoming difficult to find a name-brand airline that has not conducted a demonstration flight. The problem is, it may all be for naught. Air France recently completed a trial, as have Lufthansa, KLM, Iberia and a raft of others. All tout the carbon dioxide savings these flights—or in some cases longer-running trials—are achieving. But the air transport industry may be deluding itself if it believes biofuels are the panacea for carbon footprint reduction, at least for this decade and possibly beyond. High fuel costs as well as competing demand make it unlikely that biojet will deliver the promised carbon dioxide reductions within a desired timeframe. Already, road transport’s demand for biodiesel is growing so rapidly that it is not clear where the supply will come from to meet 2020 targets, says John Cooper, director of transport policy at BP. Availability of sufficient feedstock is “a major concern,” he notes.

What is more, many biofuels have a carbon footprint that is not much better than fossil fuels and, with regulators looking to impose an indirect land-use charge to account for the fact that food is not produced, the prospects for biojet are dimmed further. Cooper fears that vegetable oil-based biojet is likely “a blind alley.” Fuels from waste products are more attractive, he says, but much of the work to commercialize those is not far enough advanced. With biojet costs about double what airlines pay for kerosene, it makes more sense for carriers to simply purchase carbon credits in an emissions trading system (ETS)than spending money on biojet. At current prices, biojet use would equate to more than €300 ($410) per metric ton of carbon, far above the ETS market rate, which is currently below €12. Airlines are still betting on biofuel, though, in part to burnish their “green” credentials. Efforts are under way in Europe to address the issue, principally the European Commission-backed biofuels flightpath that has as its goal production of 2 million tons of sustainable biofuel by 2020.

However, there is some doubt that the cost curve can change significantly. In the case of many technologies it is difficult to see how costs will come down, Cooper says. If airlines are serious about achieving carbon-neutral growth by 2020, it is all the more troubling, then, that their involvement in the European Union’s emissions trading system is so precarious. The EU’s decision to include all airlines that land in or depart from member states is not just garnering increasing vocal opposition from outsiders, but threatens to become a nasty international battle. European airlines, despite their misgivings about elements of the ETS, would not want to see its total demise, because if this attempt at a cap-and-trade system fails it might be replaced with more draconian measures, such as additional taxes, warns British Airways’ head of environmental affairs, Jonathan Counsell. “By taking too big a first step, it is taking us backward,” he says...

Boeing, Embraer Form Biofuel Joint Venture.

Reuters (10/27, Ewing) reports Boeing and Embraer have agreed to work together on a biofuels joint venture to determine the best way to expand the use of biofuel from sugar. According to the article, because the companies are leaders in the plane market, the venture shows how interested commercial airlines are in biofuels...


Will producers scale, or fail?

(Biofuelsdigest, 11/7) In recent weeks, aviation biofuel enthusiasts have noted the commencement of biofuels-powered commercial flights in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico, and asked when the US-developed technology would finally operate on a commercial basis in the US. Alaska Airlines stepped up to answer the call in partnership with Dynamic Fuels, only to find that United has teamed up with Solazyme to snatch the prize for first flight. This morning in Texas, United Airlines will operate the first U.S. commercial flight powered by advanced biofuel, utilizing Solazyme Solajet fuel, on Monday, November 7. UA Flight 1403 will depart from United’s hub at Bush Intercontinental Airport (the heart of big oil) and fly to the airline’s hub at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The aircraft is a United Boeing 737-800 Eco-Skies aircraft, and Continental pilots will be at the helm. The flight departs Bush at 10:25 am CT from terminal C, and lands at Chicago O’Hare at 1:01pm CT, typically arriving at United’s Terminal 1. The fuel, produced by Solazyme, is a 40/60 blend of sustainable biofuel and traditional petroleum-derived jet fuel. Solazyme’s renewable oils were upgraded into Solafuel by Honeywell’s UOP...

United begins algae-based biofuel use
 

Algae helps power flight to Chicago

(J. Moreno, HoustonChronicle, 11/7) Airplane fueler Monte Hawkins filled the tank in the wing of a United Continental Holdings jet Monday morning with fuel derived partly from algae as the plane prepared to take off into history.The Boeing 737-800's flight from Houston was the first by a U.S. carrier to include passengers on a plane powered by a blend that included algae-based biofuel along with conventional petroleum-based jet fuel.The flight left Bush Intercontinental Airport bound for Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Chicago is the headquarters of Continental parent United Continental Holdings. United Continental Holdings estimates that the biofuel blend on the flight Monday reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an amount equal to what would come from the exhaust of a car driven 30,000 miles...

Alaska Airlines Begins Biofuel Flights.

The Seattle (WA) Times (11/9, Gates) reports, "Alaska Airlines begins an expensive trial of biofuel-powered passenger flights Wednesday, billing the 75 trips as a pioneering effort to 'fly cleaner' and to kick-start a nascent renewable-energy economy." According to the article, it is "part of a worldwide push by airlines" to deal with climate change issues despite the fact that biofuels burn as much as conventional fuels. However, these are "greener" since the emissions come from renewable sources, a claim the article notes is "not self-evident." Meanwhile, "the appeal of biofuels...is driven by relentless pressure from environmentalists."

Recent Flights Show Demand For Biofuels.

Aviation Week and Space Technology (11/14, Warwick) reported on recent biofuel flights by airlines, which "are intended to show producers there is demand for biofuel, and they come as negotiations are at a critical stage between feedstock providers, fuel producers and private investors to scale up bio-jet production to commercial quantities." According to the article, it is "crucial" to these airlines to use biofuels that are not foodstocks. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "The US Department of Agriculture [USDA] is working with the Department of Energy and the Navy to put together a package to commercialize drop-in biofuels" with a "focus" on how to develop "biorefineries." In order to reach the needed production levels, the article notes "the key next step will be signing large-scale, long-term fuel offtake agreements that will enable producers to secure investment to scale up production."

An early attempt at algae biofuel mass production...

Sapphire secures USDA loan guarantee for NM algae demo facility

(E. Voegele, BioDiesel, 11/15) The USDA announced this month that it had issued a loan guarantee to Sapphire Energy Inc. The guarantee will support the development of Sapphire Energy’s demonstration-scale algae production facility in New Mexico, which will produce “green crude” oil from algae that can be refined into transportation fuel. “The Obama Administration is committed to providing support for renewable energy production, which will safeguard national security and create jobs in rural America,” said Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack. “This project represents another step in the effort to assist the nation's advanced biofuel industry produce energy in commercial quantities from sustainable rural resources.” Sapphire Energy is constructing a $135 million integrated algal biorefinery (IABR) in Columbus, N.M. According to the USDA, the IABR will be capable of producing 100 barrels of refined algal oil per day, equivalent to at least 1 million gallons per year. The oil will be shipped to the Gulf Coast, where it will be refined into drop-in biofuels by Geismar, La.-based Dynamic Fuels. According to Tim Zenk, Sapphire Energy’s vice president of corporate affairs, his company has been working to finalize the loan guarantee since late 2009. The $135 million project is under development using a $50 million federal grant, the recently finalized $54.5 million loan guarantee and $30 million matching funds contributed by Sapphire Energy. Construction on the first phase of the project began in June, Zenk said. “The project will be built in three distinct phases,” he said. The first portion of the project will include 100 acres of algae cultivation. “We’ll do everything from cultivation to harvest and extraction,” Zenk said. “Then the oil will be refined in a typical refinery into diesel and jet fuel. At full capacity, once all three phases are built over the next three years, we’ll be producing a million gallons of jet and a million gallons of diesel per year.” The final stage of the project is scheduled to be operational by 2015.

Ok, how many acres does it take to replace ALL jet fuel ?

Back of the envelope calc.

1. ATA: US airlines and cargo ops consume 17.5 billion gallons of Jet A per year.

2. Sapphire says it can produce 1 million gallons of Jet A at its 3 phase plant, and the first phase covers 100 acres. Taking a "WAG" at the size of the three plants together, say 300 acres. So 1M gallons Jet A per 300 acres per year.

3. (17.5e9 Gal/ year) * (year/1e6 Gal) * 300 acres = 5.2e6 acres of land, or 5125 square miles, or roughly the entire state of Connecticut.

Size of US States

My guess is the plants have to be in the sunbelt, and maybe it would be practical to use SW desert. I would also venture a guess they can't be packed into a single contiguous piece of land, but even if the figure doubles it sounds feasible from a land use standpoint.

FAA Awards Funds For Alternative Jet Fuels.

AVstop (12/4, Douglas) reported that the FAA will award $7.7 million to eight companies "to help advance alternative, environmentally-friendly, sustainable sources for commercial jet fuel." According to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, "these new green aviation fuels will use energy sources right here at home," and he added "this type of innovation will create good-paying jobs in the airline and energy industries and help protect the environment at the same time." The Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe Center will distribute the funds to the eight companies who will help the FAA to "develop and approve alternative, sustainably-sourced 'drop-in' jet fuels that can be used without changing aircraft engine systems or airport fueling infrastructure."

U.S. Navy, USDA make largest federal purchase of biofuels.

(12/6, FoxNews) The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture signed an agreement to purchase 450,000 gallons of biofuel derived from nonfood sources. The fuel will power aircraft and ships as part of an initiative to promote biofuels. The purchase at $16 per gallon marks the largest federal purchase of biofuels to date.

I had to wonder why the Navy would buy 450,000 somethings for 16 dollars instead of 3 dollars.

I found out why, it makes for an interesting story.:D

It turns out that the real price was a little under $150 per gallon so far.

No worries, they will make up the difference on volume! :)

Students of History will see an almost exact replica of the elements involved here, although far more money is involved, even correcting for inflation:Teapot Dome scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We are indeed doomed to repeat that which we do not study.

Corruption? Maybe... It does look like a ripe field for it. Pardon the pun.

Lufthasa Conducting First Transatlantic Flight With Biofuel.

(USA Today, 1/10/12) "Boarding Area" blog reports, "Lufthasa announced that it will be concluding it's biofuel testing initiatives by conducting the first ever transatlantic flight using biofuels." The flight is scheduled for Thursday afternoon from Frankfurt to Washington, DC. According to the article, "Lufthansa has been pioneering the use of biofuels for quite some time on test routes in Germany and is now expanding the test to include this long haul flight."

BioJet, Council of Energy Resource Tribes form strategic partnership for aviation biofuels.

(J. Lane, 1/11/12, BiofuelsDigest) In Colorado, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) today announced formation of a strategic business relationship with BioJet International. CERT is comprised of 57 sovereign Indian tribes as members. CERT members collectively own and manage more than 30% of the coal west of the Mississippi and 10% of known national oil and gas reserves in the United States. CERT members also manage millions of acres of agricultural lands from which feedstock for biofuels may be grown.

Obama Promotes [Biofuels]


(B. Wingfield, 2/24, Bloomberg) The Energy Department is investing in biofuel technology made from algae as a substitute for gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel. Faced with the highest oil prices in nine months, President Barack Obama is backing [algae-based biofuel] as a path to energy independence, pitting the nascent algae-based biofuels industry against critics of his energy plan. The administration yesterday announced as much as $14.3 million to support the development of biofuels from algae, as crude oil for April delivery rose to $107.83 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its highest settlement price since May. “We could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States,” Obama said in Miami during a speech on energy policy. The Energy Department is seeking proposals from small businesses, national laboratories and universities to create research “test beds” for algal biofuels research at existing facilities, according to a statement from the agency. The award money will be part of a $30 million investment in similar research this year, it said. Algae, a plant-like organism, can be harvested from ponds near industrial sites, where it can grow from power-plant carbon emissions or wastewater substances, the White House said in a fact sheet. The Energy Department is backing more than 30 projects representing about $85 million in public and private investment to develop biofuels from algae, it said...

China Makes Aviation Biofuel Use Predictions.

(China Daily, 2/29, Zhou) reports, "China is expected to use 12 million metric tons of aviation biofuels by 2020, accounting for 30 percent of the country's total use of jet fuel, according to Li Jian, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China." Li "said China now has the technology needed to produce jet biofuels and only needs to produce the substances more cheaply to sell them commercially." Meanwhile, China Petrochemical Corp also announced it has produced its own biofuel.

Officials Seek To "Jump-Start" Aviation Biofuel Industry.

The Seattle Times (3/18, Song) reported on efforts to help "jump-start the nascent [aviation biofuel] industry and to bring prices of jet biofuel down to earth." On Thursday, for example, Washington State Gov. Chris Gregoire "signed a bill that would let private aviation biofuel plants in the state tap financing through lower-interest revenue bonds." Meanwhile, US Sen. Maria Cantwell, "who chairs the Senate subcommittee on aviation, is pushing the Federal Aviation Administration to create an aviation biofuel research hub, ideally in the Tri-Cities near Washington State University's branch campus and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory."

Carbon tax drives another biofuel effort.
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Major Plane Makers Join Forces To Develop Biofuels.

AFP (3/23) reports Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer "announced on Thursday a joint plan to develop affordable biofuels for the airplane industry." This work "is intended to come up with a so-called 'drop in' technology that all airplane models could use, regardless of the make." All three, who called for a "unity" in purpose, "said they were committed to reducing the industry's substantial carbon footprint."

Thanks Cubdriver, for the updates! I am very interested to see tge developments in algae, particularly. I wish this was ready to go, like yesterday!

Biofuel is going to happen, fossil fuel is simply biofuel from the annals of time. The beauty of biofuel is it is a drop-in replacement for Jet A, and it has a bright future for that reason. The problem is paying for the heavy infrastructure development it takes to produce it en masse- huge obstacle there. Taxpayers do not want to fund it, but the current fuel market will not pay $30+ a gallon for it either. My readings tell me algae is the way to go although the industry may try other avenues especially in third world countries. Like wind, coal, nuclear, natural gas, etc. it may take decades to grab a large share of the transportation fuel market.

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Oil Scare Turns FedEx On To Energy Efficiency

(J. Ydstie, NPR, 4/1/12) The rising cost of oil isn't just a hit to the family budget. Businesses are hurt, too. Few are more affected than firms like FedEx. It deploys nearly 700 planes and tens of thousands of trucks and vans every day to deliver packages around the world. And few business leaders are more focused on finding alternatives to petroleum-based fuels than FedEx CEO Fred Smith. Shortly after Smith founded Federal Express, the 1973 Arab oil embargo almost killed it. The experience imprinted Smith with a keen interest in the price and availability of oil. "That would be an understatement," Smith laughs. "For sure." FedEx now burns 1.5 billion gallons a year of petroleum-based fuels, and, once again, the potential for conflict in the Middle East, specifically with Iran, has boosted prices and raised fears of a supply disruption. Smith says keeping the supply of imported oil flowing has cost the U.S. dearly over the past 40 years. "We spend about $70 [billion] to $80 billion a year as a country doing that, not just for ourselves, but for the rest of the world as a whole," Smith says. "And that's even before we get to the $1.3 trillion we've spent on Afghanistan and Iraq, and as Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said pretty plainly, 'Iraq was about oil.' Not totally, but ... so these are very big issues."

Sapphire Energy Announces $144 Million Funding

(A.M. Edwards, 04/02/12, DomesticFuel) San Diego-based biofuel developer Sapphire Energy, Inc. has secured the final installment of $144 million in a Series C round of venture funding that includes Arrowpoint Partners, Monsanto, and other undisclosed investors. This round of funding is being used to directly support Sapphire’s active and on-schedule commercial demonstration of an algae-based biofuels facility in Luna County, New Mexico. The Green Crude Farm, also known as the Integrated Algal BioRefinery (IABR), is the world’s first commercial demonstration scale algae-to-energy facility, integrating the entire value chain of algae-based fuel, from cultivation to production to extraction of ready-to-refine Green Crude. With this latest investment round, Sapphire Energy’s total funding from private and public sources substantially exceeds $300 million. This announcement follows several recent partnerships and deals supporting Sapphire Energy’s continued expansion in Green Crude production. Last month, Sapphire announced it will integrate Earthrise Nutritionals’ spirulina strain into its growing inventory of cyanobacteria and algae strains to expand resources for algae-to-energy production. In May 2011, Sapphire announced a multi-year agreement with The Linde Group to co-develop a low-cost system to deliver CO2 to commercial-scale, open-pond, algae-to-fuel cultivation systems, now underway at the Green Crude Farm. In March 2011, Sapphire and Monsanto entered into a multi-year collaboration on algae-based research projects. Sapphire also was awarded a $50 million grant from the Department of Energy and a $54.4 million dollar loan guarantee from the Department of Agriculture, providing security for a privately funded loan...

Boeing, All Nippon Airways Fly 787 Using Biofuels Blend.

The Everett (WA) Herald (4/18, Dunlop) reports, "The Boeing Co. and All Nippon Airways flew a 787 using a biofuels blend for the first time Monday." Billy Glover, Boeing vice president of environmental and aviation policy, remarked, "The 787 is the most environmentally progressive jetliner flying today, combining fuel efficiency and comfort with reduced carbon emissions." ANA senior executive vice president Osamu Shinobe added, "Our historic flight using sustainable biofuels across the Pacific Ocean highlights how innovative technology can be used to support our industry's goal of carbon-neutral growth beyond 2020."

Tests of aviation jet biofuel to start.

(4/30/12, UPI) MORRISTOWN, N.J., April 30 (UPI) -- U.S. tech firm Honeywell says it is starting one of the aviation industry's first comprehensive test programs for aviation biofuel. Honeywell subsidiary UOP will carry out the program in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada and Agrisoma Biosciences, earthtechling.com reported Monday. Blends of Honeywell green jet fuel will be tested at higher ratios than used in previous demonstration flights, which to date have not exceeded a 50/50 blend of biofuel and petroleum-based jet fuel. The biofuel being tested has been produced from a new non-food, industrial oilseed crop produced by Ottawa-based Agrisoma from Brassica carinata, belonging to a family of flowering plants that also includes cabbages and turnips, Honeywell said.Read more: Tests of aviation jet biofuel to start - UPI.com

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Edit: I stopped following development of this engine some time ago and chose to focus on fuel rather than engines. It's nice to get some good news about it after several years.

Pratt’s engine future: Pancakes on biofuel.

(B. Kane, HartfordBusiness.com, 5/07/12) The future of East Hartford aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney seems golden. Its geared turbofan engine is the talk of the aviation industry and the company is projecting $325 billion or so over the next two decades from its latest generation of the commercial jet engine. But in an industry where project cycles are measured in decades, the company is already planning an engine encore. That encore? Pancakes. Pratt has been hailed for its so-called game-changing technology in the geared turbofan engine, an environmentally-friendly, noise-reducing, fuel-saving propulsion system slated for use on four different types of jets. The $13.4 billion company has a backlog of more than 2,600 orders for its four versions of the geared turbofan — also called the PurePower engine — and none of the four has reached the production phase yet. The company expects $325 billion in total revenue over the life of the program. “Everything we have been asserting in the marketplace has been validated in testing,” said Pratt President David Hess. “We continue to get phenomenal results from the air and ground tests.”

But the life of the program will expire sometime between 2025 and 2035, and given the nearly two decade development cycle of the PurePower, the company needs to start thinking about the next generation soon. “This is our success du jour,” said Alan Epstein, Pratt vice president of technology and environment. “We are heroes of the moment.” As the head of Pratt’s advanced technology, Epstein thinks about the company’s next move long before managers take a concept and start developing a product with a budget. “I’m worried about what’s the engine to replace the GTF and the one after that,” Epstein said. The aerospace company has until 2025 or 2030 before it will need the next generation of engines for narrowbody planes such as the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. Pratt’s engines of the future will be much wider in diameter in the front but much shorter in the back. In essence, they will become more pancake-like, Epstein said. That shape significantly reduces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The future’s engines will need fewer blades, as has been the trend with each generation of Pratt engines. They will need to be more fuel-efficient.

The PurePower offers a 16 percent fuel burn improvement over the best performing engine currently on the market. The next generation will need to yield another 10-15 percent improvement over the geared turbofan, Epstein said. The fuel-saving and noise-reduction benefits will play a major role in all the following generations of Pratt engines, Epstein said. As vice president for technology and environment, Epstein’s time is split between looking for product improvements and dealing with regulators as well as determining the proper balance between suppliers’ environmental impact and cost.

Green fuel is possible with artificial ecosystems/ Open ponds versus closed

(5/10/12, C.Dormer, planetearth) For algae to power our cars and planes, production needs to be low carbon and cost effective, which means working with natural processes, not against them, say scientists. Algae could become an important source of sustainable biofuel, as production doesn't compete with food crops for land. But we may need to change the way we grow algae from closed systems to open ponds if it is to be low-carbon and cost-effective. This is because current algae production in closed systems – usually for cosmetic ingredients – uses too much energy keeping the ecosystem isolated from the surrounding environment. To overcome this issue, scientists from the University of Cambridge suggest that when grown in open ponds, algae should be supplemented with multiple species that help support the algae in some way. This would make the system less vulnerable to outside influences such as predators. They say that ecosystems with greater numbers of species are more stable and more resilient to change than monoculture systems made up of just one crop. The scientists have coined the term synthetic ecology to describe the creation of artificial ecosystems with multiple species...

Ever wondered what a farmer might think about 'alternative fuels'? Now corporate farming is every-bit as miserly as corporate airlines when it comes to fuel burns. Would we ever consider planting fuel crops over food crops? Sure, some of us grow 'supplemental' fuel. < R.M. Williams Holdings & Tropical forestry services> The industry is, among a great many other things, exploring replacing large displacement diesel engines with 'turbine power packs'... aka helo power-plants.
Both of our governments <and others i would imagine> have been exploring oceanic algae seeding to modify weather, with success. Maybe we should be creating algae blooms in the gulf to seed rain in Texas, to grow maize or sugar for chemical consumption?!
As far as algae goes its a bit of a red herring, growing algae for fuel directly.Its hard to actively grow. Its won't break even cost wise and it can't be grown openly like a university due to EPA laws. Also it would be only a matter of time before some enterprising entity realized that if you don't use 'green' algae and replace it with 'blue green algae' you don't even need light. This wont be ponds with goldfish gentlemen, this will be an industry with 'breeder tanks' and 'cracking chambers' and all the risk associated with it.

Navy's Great Green Fleet.

(G. Pew, AvWeb, 5/11/12) The U.S. Navy's participation in a 22-nation exercise this summer will include a two-day demonstration of the "Great Green Fleet" carrier strike group, operating in part on alternative non-fossil fuels. The demonstration group will operate aircraft and non-carrier ships on 50/50 blends of biofuel and conventional fuels. The Navy has set a goal of 2020 to meet half of its energy needs with non-fossil fuels. The Great Green Fleet's two-day demonstration during the Rim of Pacific exercise is meant to precipitate a larger months-long deployment of a similarly-fueled group set to deploy in 2016. Increases in fuel costs have pushed Defense Department spending $3 billion over budget in 2012 due to rising fuel costs...

Senate blocks biofuel development in draft defense bill.

(C.Munoz, 05/25/12, TheHill.com) The Pentagon will have to work a little harder if it wants to eventually run its tanks, ships and planes on something other than fossil fuels, thanks to defense lawmakers in the Senate. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee effectively banned the department from buying alternative fuels or building facilities to manufacture it. Those measures were rolled into the committee's draft of the fiscal 2013 defense budget bill approved on Thursday. Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he hopes to have the bill brought to the full Senate no later than July...

Engineer Says ICAO Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions Will Mask Output.

Bloomberg News (6/28, Carr) reports, "A metric proposed as part of the International Civil Aviation Organization's plan to curb greenhouse gases in the airline industry will mask the actual emissions of aircraft, according to an aeronautical engineer." Dimitri Simos, the founder of an English airline-engineering software company known as Lissys Ltd., said that "the proposal uses a plane's maximum take-off weight, a certification level known as MTOW, to help determine emissions and whether the aircraft is efficient enough to fly." Simos adds, "Using MTOW as a weight determinant of CO2 is scientifically, and surely also legally under any rational system, utterly indefensible."

Senators gird for fight over U.S. Navy's 'Green Fleet'

(7/18/12, R. Rampton, S. Cornwell, Reuters) - U.S. senators who support the Pentagon's push to expand its use of biofuels said they have a plan to answer critics who argue the fuel is far too expensive to help develop at a time when the military faces massive cuts. The battle on Capitol Hill comes as the U.S. Navy's "Great Green Fleet" prepares to run military exercises in the central Pacific that will, on Thursday, feature its first operational test of biofuels. The U.S. military is the world's largest single buyer of oil. The Obama administration has argued "Green Fleet" spending on biofuels could help boost production to commercial levels, eventually lowering prices for alternatives to oil, and reducing dependence on supplies from the Middle East. For Thursday's demonstration project, the Navy paid more than $26 per gallon for the fuel, made from renewable sources like algae and chicken fat, a $12-million outlay that sparked congressional anger. Republican critics of the biofuel plan, led by senators John McCain and James Inhofe, found enough support within the Senate Armed Services Committee in May for two proposals that could limit additional spending. The measures would stop spending on fuels that cost more than conventional fuels, and prevent spending on refineries that would help scale up production of still-experimental fuels. They were added to a bill authorizing defense programs in 2013...

Let the DOE fund the production of the biofuel. If they want to then give it to the Navy to test, great.

There currently is a lot of domestic political opposition to fed funding for things like alternative fuels, especially when there is no immediate need for it, war or fuel shortage. That debate is heating up in Congress, as well as the debate about carbon taxes imposed on airlines operating international routes by the European Union plus a few other governments. The latter is tied to the debate on global warning, another hot-button topic.

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Senate Commerce Committee Passes ETS Prohibition Act.

(Bloomberg News, 8/1, McQuillen) reports, "A US Senate panel approved legislation that would exempt" US air "carriers from European Union greenhouse-gas limits" known as the Emissions Trading Scheme, that the airlines "say would cost them more than $3.1 billion by 2020." The Senate Commerce Committee voted on the measure allowing "the US Transportation secretary discretion to prohibit compliance could set up a showdown with the EU over the fees it plans to charge airlines for the pollution they produce." In December, the article mentions, US "Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a letter to the EU...saying the program is 'the wrong way' to cut the release of gases scientists tie to climate change."

Aemetis Licenses Biofuel Process From Chevron Venture With CB&I

(A. Herndon, 8/27, Bloomberg) Aemetis Inc. (AMTX), a U.S. producer of biofuels and renewable chemicals, plans to make jet fuel and diesel using technology developed by a joint venture of Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. The technology from Chevron Lummus Global LLC uses water to convert plant oils into products that are similar to petroleum crude and are refined into fuel, Cupertino, California-based Aemetis said today in a statement. Licensing the technology will accelerate Aemetis’s efforts to commercialize “drop-in” renewable jet fuel and diesel. These differ from competing biofuels because they may be used without blending standard, petroleum-based products, said Leon de Bruyn, managing director of Chevron Lummus. “The biodiesel and biojet produced from the unit are truly fungible” products that replace petroleum-derived fuels, he said in the statement. Chevron Lummus is equally owned by Chevron and CB&I. ...

How The Return Of Supersonic Flight Will Revolutionize Travel

(A. Davies, 8/30/12, BusinessInsider) Since the last flight of the Concorde, a turbo-jet powered supersonic passenger plane, in 2003, jet travel has been stubbornly stuck at the same subsonic speed. As the troubled history of the Concorde (and its lesser Soviet counterpart, the Tupolev Tu-144) showed, supersonic air travel depends on overcoming a lot of obstacles, from the pesky sonic boom to high cost, safety issues and insatiable fuel consumption. So airlines have given up the quest to reduce travel times, and have focused on fitting more passengers into their planes for less. These days, the closest anyone who isn’t an Air Force pilot or astronaut can get to Mach III is using a Gillette razor. But the dream of jetting from New York to Tokyo in under three hours hasn’t been abandoned. Among travelers, especially the wealthy, there’s still demand for shorter flight times, especially since air travel has become so unpleasant in recent years. And there’s a young but growing market to meet that demand. More than a few private aerospace companies hope to cash in on the (really) high speed jet travel market. And NASA’s in on the game, too. There’s no great secret to supersonic flight: It’s about adding power until the aircraft can break the sound barrier. That power has always come from conventional fuel, and lots of it. With the clock ticking on fossil fuels, future aircraft will need to use less fuel or rely on renewable energy sources. Hypermach Aerospace Ltd is working on a hybrid electric turbine propulsion system to power the SonicStar jet it’s developing. More outlandishly, EADS, the parent company of Airbus, wants to use biofuel made from seaweed in the Zero Emission Hypersonic Transport (ZEHST), which will fly at Mach 4. That’s a lot of seaweed, but since EADS notes the ZHEST won’t be ready for at least 40 years, it has the time to figure everything out. Trickier than the fuel dilemma is the problem posed by the sonic boom. When an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound (768 mph), it pushes air molecules aside with enough force to create a shock wave, resulting in a thunder-like boom. Even when it is generated thousands of feet above the ground, that boom is so loud that the United States banned supersonic flight over its territory. Other countries did the same, drastically limiting the routes the Concorde could fly, hurting its economic potential. To bring back supersonic flight, aircraft designers have to find a way to eliminate the boom, or quiet it enough to make it acceptable. One proposal by Lockheed Martin includes the installation of an inverted-V on the airplane’s tail, which the corporation believes could limit the level of sonic booms. There’s another way to eliminate the boom: leave the atmosphere altogether. XCOR Aerospace believes the future of high speed travel is in outer space. “Rockets are the way to go,” says COO Andrew Nelson. XCOR is pioneering the idea of point-to-point space travel, starting with the Lynx, a suborbital commercial spacecraft that will take off and land like a conventional plane, but cruise at Mach 3.5 (2,688 mph). It will be “much more like a fighter pilot experience” than business class, says Nelson, but it will make for an incredibly quick trip: New York to Tokyo in 90 minutes. As to when supersonic flight will be available to anyone who can afford it, the estimates range tremendously. Aerion is already working with FAA officials to secure certification for its Supersonic Business Jet, which it aims to have in the air by the end of the decade. XCOR hopes to start test flights of the Lynx by early 2013, with the goal of offering point-to-point travel (as opposed to taking off and landing in the same place) by 2030. The ZEHST is shooting for 2050; JAXA, the Japanese equivalent of NASA, conservatively bets economical and environmentally-friendly supersonic travel will be available “in the 21st century.” Of course, “economical” is a relative term. These aircraft, like the Concorde before them, will be the preserve of the wealthy. That isn’t to say high speed flight will always remain off limits to the middle class. Aviation has been a commercial industry for little more than a century, and is now widely accessible. Once the technology is established, airlines will likely compete to offer it to more and more customers, for lower and lower prices. International business will get easier, friends and families separated by oceans will see each other more often, and the world will get a little smaller...

Lufthansa, Algae.Tec To Build Algae-Based Aviation Fuel Plant.

The Business Green (9/21) reports, "Lufthansa will team up with Australian biofuels company Algae.Tec to build a large-scale plant producing aviation fuels from algae." It is expected to be located in an "unnamed European country adjacent to an industrial CO2 source," although Lufthansa's board still needs to approve the deal. Meanwhile, in another announcement, "aircraft traffic services company NATS has teamed up with British Airways (BA) for a four-month trial of environmentally 'perfect' transatlantic flights, which could help reduce the impact of the projected doubling of European air traffic by 2030." If successful, an "optimised flight profile and continuous descent approach" could save 500kg in fuel per flight.

Honeywell Developing Biofuel Refinery For USAF.

The Dayton (OH) Business Journal (9/22, Cogliano) reported, "A division of Honeywell International Inc. is being tapped by the US Air Force to expand the domestic supply of biofuels." The division will "help create an economically viable refinery for what's known as advanced drop-in biofuels" that can be used by planes without any modifications. The article noted this comes as the Air Force also announced the Assured Aerospace Fuels Research Facility that "is being billed as a highly-versatile, cutting edge facility designed to help fill a much-needed gap in the fuel research effort, allowing government, industry and academia researchers to produce the optimum quantities of fuel needed to perform laboratory research without resorting to full-scale production efforts."

USDA announces sixth grant to develop advanced biofuels.

(H. Jessen, EthanolProducer, 10/18/12) Switchgrass is one of the three biomass crops that will be studied in the course of a $10 million, five-year research project in the Northeast. The USDA announced a five-year, $10 million grant has been awarded to research shrub willow, switchgrass and miscanthus grown on marginal and abandoned lands, such as reclaimed mine sites, in the Northeast. This is the sixth grant awarded through USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, which is working to develop regional renewable energy markets to create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Five other regional systems were previously formed in the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest, Northern states, Southern states, and the Southeast. “This will basically complete our efforts in every corner of the country as part of our overall effort to promote biofuel, both in terms of automobiles and truck transportation as well as aviation and marine fuel,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during an Oct. 16 conference call...

Gulfstream touts G650, G280, and biofuel

(AOPA Online, 10/30/12, T. Horne) ...In other news, Gulfstream showed its commitment to green fuels by flying all five of its demonstration airplanes to NBAA2012 in Orlando on a 50-50 blend of biofuel and Jet A. The biofuel, dubbed Honeywell Green Jet Fuel, was made from camelina—a non-food plant that can be grown in rotation with wheat and other cereal crops. Gulfstream said that based on lifetime cycle studies, burning each gallon of the biofuel instead of Jet A reduces carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 68 percent. Scott Neal, Gulfstream senior vice president of sales and marketing, said, “Using biofuels is part of a multipronged approach Gulfstream has taken toward sustainability. In addition to reducing our carbon footprint, we’re focused on improving aircraft efficiencies.”

Senate Moves To End Restrictions on Military Biofuels

(Flying, S. Pope, 12/04/12) The U.S. Senate is moving to eliminate restrictions on Department of Defense research into alternative jet fuel sources, a reversal that could help speed biofuel development. The 67-32 vote removes language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have prevented the military from purchasing biofuels if they cost more than traditional fuels – and at this early point in their development, they always do. The Air Force has been testing small quantities of alternative fuels in warplanes and support aircraft in order to demonstrate their reliability, with a plan to shift more to biofuels once prices comes down. But the testing has been expensive. The Air Force paid about $59 per gallon for 11,000 gallons in one test earlier this year. That prompted Congress to put restrictions on military biofuel evaluations in the name of deficit reduction...

15 Burning Questions (and Answers) for Biofuels in 2013: Policy, finance, technology, feedstocks, markets, prices, and opposition.

(J. Lane, 12/13/12, Biofuelsdigest) ...Policy...1. The future of RFS2 and what the industry needs to get done with the RFS to make it a more effective policy instrument for advanced biofuels. The Digest’s Take. The battle over RFS2′s future has shifted. Opponents now point to surging US production in natural gas and oil – saying, we don’t want to change RFS2, we want to repeal it, it’s not needed: corn ethanol is too damaging to food and oil interests, advanced biofuels are not arriving in sufficient quantities. Industry’s answer is likely going to have to be evidence of growing production – especially of advanced biofuels from non-food feedstocks. “We’re late, but we’re here” is better than “five years away.” If there is significant deployment activity in the US, at least, in 2013 – with the likes of Beta Renewables, POET-DSM, Dupont, INEOS Bio, KiOR, Gevo and/or Butamax and a host of other companies that are working up plans for first commercial projects – well, that certainly would be enough to prevent repeal...

Up, up and away: aviation biofuels players start building capacity

(J. Lane, 1/10/13, Biofuelsdigest) Great Scott! Look up in the Sky! There hasn’t been a hotter sector in biofuels demand than aviation. Now, flight tests and fuel development has given way to real capacity building. Who’s in the lead to win in this $180 billion sector? Faster than a speeding bullet…more powerful than a locomotive… that’s the growth and momentum in aviation biofuels. First there were the partnerships, then the fuel R&D, then the flight tests, then the offtake agreements. And there was the hope- especially at airlines- that strategic investors and lenders would jump into the financing of the first commercial fuel projects. That was, as the saying goes, then. Now – it’s all about organizing sustainable, affordable feedstock and building capacity. And, airlines providing capital for the first commercial projects — to ensure that capacity building reaches levels in line with the industry’s self-imposed targets: to stabilize carbon emissions from 2020 with carbon-neutral growth; and to a net reduction in carbon emissions of 50% by 2050 compared to 2005. What does carbon-neutral growth mean, exactly, in terms of biofuels capacity building? The airlines aim for an average of 4 percent annual passenger growth (and hope to do better), and will offset 1.5 percent of that growth through more fuel-efficient planes...


Engineered algae seen as fuel source

(UPI, 1/8/13) Engineered bacteria could make fuel from sunlight as a step toward replacing fossil fuels as raw materials for the chemical industry, U.S. researchers say. Chemists at the University of California, Davis, say they have engineered blue-green algae to grow chemical precursors for fuels and plastics. "Most chemical feed stocks come from petroleum and natural gas, and we need other sources," chemistry Professor Shota Atsumi said in UC Davis release Monday. Photosynthesis forms carbon-carbon bonds using carbon dioxide as a raw material for reactions powered by sunlight, and cyanobacteria, also known as "blue-green algae," have been doing it for more than 3 billion years, the researchers said. Using cyanobacteria to grow chemicals does not compete with food needs, in the way that corn is needed for the creation of ethanol, they said...

Obama Administration Extends "Farm To Fly" Biofuels Program.

The Hill (4/16, Colman) reports in its "E2 Wire" blog that on Monday the Federal government extended a program designed to develop biofuels for commercial aircraft by another five year. The Hill notes that "Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the agreement at a conference outside Washington, D.C." According to the Hill, "Known as 'Farm to Fly,' the effort also involves private airline firms - who cite making the fuel supply chain more efficient as a key benefit - and the Federal Aviation Administration." Meanwhile, LaHood said in a statement, "In his State of the Union Address, President Obama called on us to work together to reduce carbon emissions - developing these alternative jet fuels will do just that, while creating jobs and helping airlines save money on fuel."

DOE Announces Investment In Biofuels Projects.

The Des Moines (IA) Register (4/22, Doering) reports that the Department of Energy has announced plans to invest over "$10.5 million in two Iowa companies to help spur the development of advanced biofuels." The agency "said it awarded $4.2 million to Frontline Bioenergy in Ames and $6.4 million to BioProcess Algae in Shenandoah to develop pilot-scale biorefineries that would be used to test renewable biofuels for use in cars, trucks, and planes while also meeting military specifications for jets and ships in the American military." The two separate "projects are part of an $18 million investment" by the Department of Energy.

UC Researchers Eye Biofuel From Tobacco Plant.

The Los Angeles Times (4/29, Sahagun) reports researchers are testing a tobacco plant to see if it could be genetically modified to produce "socially acceptable bio-fuels to power airplanes" and other vehicles. Researchers at University of California, Berkeley, say preliminary results are encouraging. The paper says the research, being conducted along with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Kentucky, "is funded with a three-year $4.8-million grant from" the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

United Airlines Makes Large Biofuel Purchase.

The Wired (6/6, Paur) “Autopia” blog reports United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 million gallons of biofuel from AltAir Fuels over the next three years, one of the first pieces of significant news “after a period of relative quiet about the use of aviation biofuel.” While there was a “flurry” of activity for a few years, the article notes the high cost relative to conventional fuels mad its future hazy. AltAir says it will be “retrofitting idled refining equipment at an existing refinery” to produce 30 million gallons of the fuel per year, so it is now looking for more customers to buy the extra fuel it will be able to produce. The article notes that “if AltAir can sustainably produce renewable fuel at competitive prices, it marks a major milestone in the aviation industry for plans to increase the use of lower emission biofuels in the future.”

I wonder if they looked at Newark first?
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Midwest Could Be Good Location For Further Biofuel Development.

The Chicago Tribune (6/27, Karp) reports that a report scheduled to be unveiled on Thursday maintains that Chicago and the Midwest could be key locations for commercial development of biofuels out of test stages. The report’s author, the Midwest Aviation Sustainable Biofuels Initiative (MASBI), will hold a summit on Thursday on the release of the recommendations. The study centers on the aviation industry’s role in biofuel development – for example, one suggestion is to develop a GM crop engineered to be a component of jet fuel.

Biofuels Could Account For 1% Of All Commercial Jet Fuel By 2015, Says Boeing

(G. Warwick, AviationWeek, 7/03/20130) Despite the challenges faced in scaling up feedstock and fuel production, commercial aviation could yet achieve the goal of meeting 1% of its jet-fuel needs from sustainable biofuels by 2015, says a senior Boeing executive. “It’s going to be really close,” says Billy Glover, vice president of market strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, adding that “1% by 2015” was set by Boeing as in “internal, aspirational” target at a time when many thought finding biofuel alternatives to petroleum-based jet fuel was impossible. Speaking after United Airlines signed its first, small biofuel offtake agreement and announced plans to release the first formal request for proposals (RFP) for larger quantities of biofuels, Glover says “there are other things in the works, but it’s not a sure thing.” “We selected 1% as an inflection point, significant enough to be able say we are really going to get enough volume to get the economies of scale and to get an idea where the economics of biofuels are going,” he says. Describing United’s purchase agreement with AltAir Fuels for 15 million gal. of biofuel over three years for use at Los Angeles International Airport as “a historic milestone,” Glover says the airline’s planned RFP for 30-40 million gal./year of biofuel at one of its hubs “is a strong indication we are right at the front end of achieving some industrial scale.” The United RFP “is the next step to understanding the availability, pricing and competitiveness of biofuels,” he says. “We are right at the inflection point today.” Issuing a formal RFP emerged as a key action from a year-long study by the Midwest Aviation Sustainable Biofuels Initiative (Masbi), led by a consortium of United, Boeing, Honeywell company UOP, the Chicago Department of Aviation and the Clean Energy Trust. Boeing has been involved in several such regional initiatives, including the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest report completed in 2011, and Glover says the Masbi report shows aviation’s understanding of the biofuels industry and policy issues has matured...

Boeing VP: Goal Of 100 Percent Renewable Fuels.

In a contribution to Popular Science (7/30) Boeing’s vice president for global business development and policy Billy Glover writes about the company’s direction toward sustainable biofuels. Glover says Boeing’s belief is that it is possible to reduce carbon-cycle contributions to zero and recycle carbon to address emission concerns. According to Glover, Boeing is working toward 100 percent renewable fuel, working from a benchmark of 50 percent set by some airlines. “Already, as an industry, we’ve flown 1,500 flights with passengers—real revenue flights—with sustainable biofuels,” writes Glover.

This thread has been going since 2008 and was originally a response to a fuel price crisis in that year, making people concerned about the long term viability of traditional fossil fuels. Its slowly coming along.
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Boeing Makes First Flight Powered By Green Diesel.

The Chicago (IL) Tribune (12/3, Karp) reported that Boeing announced that it has “completed the first test flight using green diesel” in a 787 Dreamliner. The Tribune reported that the plane was powered by a “fuel blend of oils and fats,” and Boeing called the flight a “major breakthrough.” Julie Felgar, managing director of Environmental Strategy and Integration at Boeing’s airplane unit, said, “Green diesel offers a tremendous opportunity to make sustainable aviation biofuel more available and more affordable for our customers.”