Cubdriver

Air New Zealand Demonstrates Efficiency Gains With Biofuels.

Air Transport Intelligence (5/28, Kuhn) reported, "Scientific testing of the alternative fuel used by Air New Zealand (ANZ) during a demonstration flight has found that a Boeing 747-400 using the 50:50 biofuel blend of Jet A1 and jatropha oil could improve fuel burn by 1.2% during a 12-hour flight covering 5,800 nautical miles." Additionally, "testing...found that using the blend could save 1.4 tonnes of fuel and trim greenhouse gas emissions between 60% and 65% in a 12-hour flight, ANZ general manager airline operations and chief pilot, Capt. David Morgan said today at the Air Transport World Eco-Aviation conference in Washington. ... Roughly 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) could also be saved and the biofuel blend could also improve fuel burn by 1% on shorter range flights."

Cubdriver

Airbus Tests Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils For Possible Biofuel Source.

Flight Daily News (6/16, Sedlák) reported, "Airbus expects within about three months to make a decision regarding tests of hydrogenated vegetable oils in biofuel demonstrations." Ross Walker, Airbus' engineering program manager of alternative fuels "said examining how fuels made from such oils would advance the certification process of biofuels, and the availability of material used in the testing are factors in the decision." Walker said the tests "would use fuel sourced from 100% of a feedstock rather than a mix or blend."

Airbus, Boeing Consider Dueling Engine Technologies Next Generation Jetliners.

Flight Daily News (6/16, Pilling) reported that "Airbus and Boeing have a big dilemma on which engine technology they should select for the new aircraft generation to replace the best-selling A320 and 737 families: advanced but 'conventional' turbofans or the futuristic-looking open rotor?" The article noted that "the problem for Airbus and Boeing is that some airlines are demanding a new narrowbody choice with radically improved economics sooner rather than later." Engine-maker "CFM says it will be ready with its all-new Leap-X engine in 2016," which "will offer up to 16% better fuel burn and 50-60% lower NOx emissions compared with today's best CFM56s." However, "open rotor technology could offer a lot more. Fuel burn could be 26% better with NOx levels similar to Leap-X, although a CFM open rotor engine could not enter service until late into the next decade."


Flight Tests Show Biofuel Blends Perform Better Than Regular Fuel.

In the "Environmental Capital" blog for the Wall Street Journal (6/18, subscription required), Angel Gonzalez writes, "A consortium made up of Boeing, engine makers and commercial airlines says that veggie fuel is not only good for the airplanes' carbon footprint -- it actually performs as well, if not better, than its petroleum-based equivalent." Several different blends of jatropha, camelina, and algae were tested, but all were noted by Gonzalez as "drop-in" biofuels, meaning "engines didn't require modification. Boeing says the blends didn't damage the equipment, and actually proved to have more oomph, or 'greater energy content' than standard jet fuel." The freezing point of the blends were also lower than the standards fuels. However, Gonzalez comments, "There's one final, but kind of important, point: The cost of producing biofuels remains higher than the cost of jet fuel."

Flight Daily News (6/17, O'Keefe) reported that Boeing reported a 50:50 blend of biofuels with Jet A could "bring efficiency improvements in the range of 1-2%, and use of the biofuel camelina could offer an 80% CO2 reduction over its lifecycle." Bill Glover, Boeing Commercial Airplanes managing director of environmental strategy, "said camelina 'could be the first available' as it can be grown in temperate climates as a rotation crop." The article noted Glover also "singled out algae as a 'very promising' feedstock but admitted that scale production was probably eight to 10 years away."

Cubdriver

"Biofuel research should focus on planes and not cars" according to Policy Exchange

BBB NEWS July 22 A crop area the size of the USA would be needed to biofuel all the world's cars [while] alternatives such as electricity exist for [most of] them, it added. Instead, it said the EU should fund research into using plant-based fuel for aviation to help cut emissions. Skeptics say some biofuels create more carbon than they save and push up the price of food for the poor. Most biofuels are derived from crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed. Bioethanol is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture. The UK government, which is funding a £27m research centre to find economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels, says 25% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transport [-vehicles, like cars and trucks]. In April 2008, it introduced a Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation", requiring 2.5% of all fuel sold at petrol stations to be biofuels, having revised its target from 5%.

Escalating emissions
The EU also changed its stipulation that 10% of transport fuel had to be from crop-based fuel, instead saying the targets could be met by any renewable source, including fuel cells, hydrogen or solar power. Policy Exchange has previously said the government should spend its £550m annual biofuel subsidies on halting the destruction of rainforests and peatland, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now the centre-right think tank says the EU should switch policy to subsidising development of biofuels for aviation because planes cannot run on other sources of energy. Airlines including Virgin Atlantic have trialled flights using up to 20% biofuel to power the engines, although climate change campaigners say use of the fuel is not sustainable. Policy Exchange claims using biofuels is the only way in the foreseeable future to meet people's desire to travel without escalating emissions of greenhouse gases. Airlines should be mandated to blend biofuel with kerosene in increasing quantities from 2020, it believes. By this time new generation crop-based fuels should have been developed which do not compete with food crops. Green groups have been critical of the destruction of rainforest to create the fuels and the resultant loss of habitat for rare species. They also say that with more farmland being turned over to grow profitable biofuels, food production has fallen and pushed up global prices, affecting supplies for the poorest people. Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner, said the report was right that it was important to cut flights "if we are to stand a chance of preventing catastrophic climate change". "But replacing aviation fuel with biofuels will take us further down a blind alley as these so-called green fuels are already increasing the climate-changing emissions that our cars, buses and lorries are producing," he said. "Growing crops for fuel is driving deforestation on a massive scale - when the full impact of this is taken into account, the biofuels added to our petrol and diesel may be producing more than twice the carbon dioxide of the fossil fuels they replace. "New fuels for planes must be proven to cut overall emissions before Governments commit to targets for them. In the meantime Ministers must scrap plans to expand the UK's airports."

TPROP4ever

Bio fuels would be great, but my question is are the people who end up manufacturing them going to try to get rich quick off of popularity by making them very expensive, or has there been any research into what the cost effectivness of manufacturing the fuel is...

HSLD

I know of a Denver company that's currently in scaled production tests of biofuel aimed at the Bizjet market.

It's going to happen.

shdw

TPROP4ever,

That will always be the case with any new technology, money motivates. Kind of sucks with 100's of years of human evolution that still nobody is in it for the excelling of the human race as a whole but in it for themselves. I guess that is life till evolution steps in again.

Cubdriver

NASA, GE To Revisit Fuel Efficient Propfan Technology.

InventorSpot (7/8, Delozier) reported on NASA and General Electric's decision to revisit the open rotor jet engine technology they started developing in the 1980s. According to the article, "the process begins by using a turbofan engine with the fans relocated to the outside of the engine housing," and "as the exhaust from the turbofan engine is forced out, they pass over a turbine which is connected to a prop on the exterior, while the other prop is driven by the turbofan." The article noted that, "along with the high flight speeds, the engine also showed a 30% to 35% decrease in fuel consumption. ... Skip to today's market, where the price of fuel is driving everyone in the transportation business to find ways to increase efficiency and decrease consumption, and the Propfan engine could change the air transportation industry as we know it."

US Airlines Agree To Buy Rentech's Synthetic Fuel.

Bloomberg News (8/18, Schlangenstein) reports, "Delta Air Lines Inc., AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and six other US carriers agreed to buy as much as 1.5 million gallons a year of Rentech Inc.'s diesel fuel made from plant waste." The synthetic fuel, scheduled for introduction "in late 2012 for ground-service equipment at Los Angeles International Airport," will be produced "at a plant in Rialto, California, slated to open in 2012." Vehicles that use "the diesel fuel 'will be among the cleanest and greenest of their kind,' said Rentech CEO D. Hunt Ramsbottom."

Navy Chemists Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel.

New Scientist (8/18, Kleiner) reported, "Faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater." The process, which is being tested by Navy chemists, "involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel." The experiment "uses a variant of a chemical reaction called the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is used commercially to produce a gasoline-like hydrocarbon fuel from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen often derived from coal."

Cubdriver

New engines: flurry of activity despite downturn
By John Croft. FlightGlobal Oct. 6, 2009.

A race to bring new technologies to market is keeping engine manufacturers busy in a down airline economy. GE is working on several continents testing cores and blades for its next-decade and beyond Leap X designs, while Pratt & Whitney has begun procuring long-lead parts - bearings and castings - as it prepares to begin testing the first prototypes of its advanced-technology PurePower geared turbofan engines for the Bombardier CSeries and Mitsubishi MRJ regional jet. Paul Adams, P&W's senior vice-president of engineering, says many of the detailed designs for the 20,000-24,000lb-thrust (89-107kN) class CSeries engine have been completed, allowing the hardware manufacture to begin. Some design work continues, however, and will culminate in a critical design review in early 2010. Adams says the first core tests will take place this winter, following by full-up engine runs for the PW1500G next summer. Work on the lower-thrust PW1217 for the MRJ has been pushed back because of Mitsubishi's redesign of the aircraft, which includes using aluminium instead of composites for the wing. Adams does not expect changes to the aircraft to affect the engine, which will enter the detailed design phase by year-end, start production in the second half of 2013, and go into service in 2014. PW1200 series engines will produce 13,000-17,000lb thrust. Adams says the final bypass ratio for the PW1500G engine will be in the "10-plus" range. P&W has advertised a 12:1 bypass ratio, which could decrease fuel burn by as much as 15% compared with similar engines.

CFM began testing its first Leap X core in June GE and Snecma joint venture CFM is marketing a 16% reduction in fuel burn with its advanced-technology Leap X ducted turbofan. A CFM56 follow-on, it is expected to run for the first time in 2012 and receive certification by 2016. "All the studies we have done with airframers show a bypass ratio of 10:1 to 11:1 as the optimum for a next-generation single-aisle type of airframe," says Ron Klapproth, Leap X programme manager. "That's a parameter that is optimised at the airplane level. The engine gets more efficient with higher bypass, but what really counts is airplane-level fuel burn." CFM says the ducted-fan version of the Leap X will have a bypass ratio of 10:1. The company is also researching an open-rotor version that would not be ready for service until after 2020. CFM began testing its first Leap X core in June, clocking 100h of ground tests with the combustor and single-stage high-pressure turbine (HPT). A second round of tests will begin on the compressor section later this year, while the company develops, in parallel, a second core with two-stage HPT. Klapproth says CFM has "a couple of years" before it must decide which configuration to use for the new engine. "We are very pleased with data on the combustor and HPT," he says, adding that the performance, airflow and acoustics matched what was expected from component level testing over the past few years. CFM also plans to begin endurance testing of the composite fan blade for the engine later this year. For the open-rotor engine, the company is set to begin windtunnel testing on various composite blades in the USA, France and Russia. CFM says a 4.3m (14.1ft) open-rotor fan could deliver a 26% reduction in fuel burn, although mounting could be an issue, as well as airline acceptance of a radical design.

link to article

[Note: Although all of the engines mentioned are not specifically biofuel engines, they are closely related to some that are and deserve inclusion in this discussion. -Cub]

Air Force Making Progress On Alternate Fuels.

Aerospace Daily and Defense Report (10/5, Warwick) reported, "On track to certify its aircraft fleet to use synthetic Fisher-Tropsch (F-T) fuel by 2011, the US Air Force has launched a similar certification effort for hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ) biofuels and is now becoming interested in fuels from cellulosic feedstocks." Already, the Defense Energy Support Center "awarded contracts to supply almost 600,000 gallons of renewable jet fuel for testing and certification," 400,000 gallons to the Air Force and 190,000 to the Navy. In producing the fuel, "Sustainable Oils will use camelina as the feedstock, Solazyme will use algae and UOP will use animal fat, or tallow, supplied by food producer Cargill. All three will use UOP's processing technology."

Cubdriver

Aviation Biofuel Certification Process Set To Begin.

Flight International (10/12, Kuhn) reported, "A key step to starting the certification process for bio-derived jet fuels is nearing completion. Testing of bio-derived blends of generic synthetic paraffinic kerosene (SPK), called hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ), has been under way for more than a year and a report about the research findings is expected to be complete by the end of 2009, says Mark Rumizen, US Federal Aviation Administration certification and qualification team leader for the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI), a consortium of aerospace firms, trade groups and the FAA." The results of the study will be considered by ASTM International, a "voluntary standards development organization" due to publish fuel specifications for 50% HRJ fuel blends some time next year, according to Rumizen.

Mexico To Team With Boeing, Honeywell On Large-Scale Biofuel Production Research.

Air Transport Intelligence (10/15, Ranson) reported, "Mexican aviation fuel services provider the Airports and Auxiliary Services Agency (ASA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Boeing and Honeywell subsidiary UOP to research the potential for Mexico to produce materials for potential use in biofuel production." The memorandum was signed during the Latin American Airline Association leadership forum in Cartagena, Columbia on Thursday. According to the article, the research will focus on "assessing the potential for large-scale production of fuels from halophytes, algae, jatropha, castor and other potential biofuel materials."

Cubdriver

Construction About To Begin On Air Force Plant To Make Alternative Fuels.

The AP (11/11) reports, "Construction is starting on a new $2.5 million facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that will allow the military to create its own fuel for research aimed at producing alternatives for powering military aircraft." The plant is expected to make "15 to 25 gallons of fuel a day from coal and biomass materials rather than waiting for industry to supply alternative fuels for Air Force testing." According to officials, this will "dramatically enhance the Air Force's current fuels research capabilities."

Pratt & Whitney To Conduct Full-Scale PurePower By End Of Year.

Aviation Week (11/14, Morris) reported, "Trials of the first brand-new engine core for Pratt & Whitney's full-scale PurePower PW1000G geared turbofan will begin by the end of the year, following delivery of hardware to the testing facility in Canada." This is a "significant step" towards full engine runs next summer. The company "expects the first PurePower geared fan engines to reduce fuel burn by around 15%, cut noise to half of today's levels...and greatly reduce operating costs...says Bob Saia, P&W vp for the next generation product family." Its "ultimate goal is to power the next generation replacements for the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families."

KLM Flies Boeing 747 With Biofuel Mix.

The AP (11/24) reports, "An airliner using a 50% biofuel mix in one engine has successfully completed a demonstration flight in the Netherlands." Air France-KLM used the mix on a Boeing 747 with 40 passengers. The fuel was derived from the camelina plant. "KLM spokeswoman Monique Matze said the airline plans eventually plans commercial flights using a biofuel mix, but it is too early to set a target date."

ICAO Developing Website To Help Develop Alternate Jet Fuels.

Air Transport Intelligence (11/23, Kuhn) reported, "ICAO will create a web document to help advance efforts to develop and commercialize alternative jet fuels." The web tool will "enable member states and the aviation industry to share information, best practices and future initiatives aimed at developing and implementing the use of alternative aviation fuels." This follows the adoption of the Global Framework on Aviation and Alternative Fuels (GFAAF) during a recent ICAO conference. "Conference attendees recommended that ICAO organize a meeting to consider the cost and financing of infrastructure projects dedicated to aviation alternative fuels as well as incentives to overcome initial market hurdles."