Boeing to Test Aviation Biofuels
- 3:42 pm |
The Boeing Co., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial airliners, will begin testing jet fuel derived from algae and other biomass and says biofuels could become a feasible alternative within five years.
Faced with soaring fuel costs and the threat of tighter emissions regulations on both sides of the Atlantic, the airline industry is scrambling to find a cheaper, cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. Boeing says biofuel may be the answer.
Bill Glover, the company’s director of environmental strategy, tells Flight Global Boeing’s laboratory tests confirmed the practicality of producing jet fuel from a wider variety of feedstocks than previously believed and it thinks aviation biofuel can be mass-produced affordably.
Expedito Parente, called by some the father of biodiesel and biokerosene, tells Tierramerica that biomass-derived jet fuel could become viable within two years. Commercial aircraft have a service life of 30 to 40 years, he says, and the need to ensure there will be affordable fuel to keep them going is spurring tremendous interest in biofuel.
The airline industry isn’t alone in exploring aviation biofuel. The Pentagon has enlisted help from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to find a feasible way to produce jet fuel from organic material "including but not limited to plants, algae, fungi, and bacteria." Boeing says it envisions such materials being used to refine aviation fuel "through a distributed biofuel production system" under a universal standard. Chevron and Shell are among the petrochemicals also looking for ways to produce biofuel from algae.
First Boeing must prove the stuff works. It plans two demonstration test flight next year, one each by Virgin and Air New Zealand, and will soon select a specific feedstock to provide the fuel.
The airline industry is facing mounting pressure from American and European lawmakers to curb emissions. The International Air Transportation Association and Virgin Atlantic say commercial airliners account for 2 percent of global carbon emissions, but that figure is expected to climb alongside the rising volume of air travel.
With that in mind, airlines are looking for ways to reduce fuel consumption. Virgin is experimenting with towing airplanes to runways, rather than having them taxi under their own power. Doing so, it says, would cut pre-flight fuel consumption by 50 percent or more. Scandinavian Airlines is using software it calls Continuous Descent Approach to monitor weather and air traffic at airports to adjust the speed of its planes to prevent circling overhead. The airline says the technology, if adopted on all its flights, would reduce fuel consumption by 492 tons and carbon dioxide emissions by 1,550 tons annually.
AeroTech Services says it can modify the wings of Boeing 737s to generate more lift and less drag, reducing fuel consumption by 4 percent – a significant figure, considering the 737 burns about 3,000 liters of fuel (about 792 gallons) per hour. Keeping the compressor, turbine and fan of the engines clean can trim fuel consumption by as much as 1.5 percent.