First Flight of Jet Powered By Algae-Fuel 255
s31523 writes "Today a US airline carrier conducted a 90 minute test flight with one of its engines powered by a 50/50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel. This was the first flight by a US carrier after other airlines have reported trying similar flights. In February 2008, a Virgin 747 flew from London to Amsterdam partly using a fuel derived from a blend of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts. At the end of December, one engine of an Air New Zealand 747 was powered by a 50/50 blend of jatropha plant oil and standard A1 jet fuel."
Additionality... or just a renewable resource? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this really an Environmentally-friendly change, or just ensuring that it's a fuel that can be supplied long-term (not limited like fossil fuels)?
Consider these points before agreeing that it truly benefits the environment:
- what energy and chemicals goes into the growing, harvesting, and processing of the plants to make it into fuel? What CO2/pollution does that create?
- the land used to grow the crops... are we displacing food crops? Would that land otherwise have sequestered CO2 long term (benefitting us), whereas now we're taking that carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere?
It's all about "additionality"... comparing the results of using the new fuel type to the alternatives as a whole. It's hard to come up with solutions that truly make an impact today - until technology makes producing these things in the lab easy (algae seems the most promising).
MadCow.
Re:Great, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Still good to know that this is renewable and useable though. Cars can go electric just fine. Airplanes capable of carrying any useful load (ie, people) have a much harder time. Weight is at a premium in an airplane and batteries are quite heavy compared to the energy they have stored.
If/when we run out of oil I have confidence that electric cars will be pretty well developed and ready. For flight though, I think some form of combustion will still be needed.
So production up to a practical level might not be as much of a problem if it means only supplying aviation fuel while everything else runs on electric. At would at a minimum keep small airplanes available for hobby use (where fuel burn is not really that bad - 4 to 10 gallons per hour is pretty common in smaller planes).
Sounds like a PR-coup, really. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm all for biofuels and algae is certainly promising, but AFAIK, it's nowhere near industrial production yet. (cellulosic ethanol is getting there though)
Note that it says:
They don't say how much algae-derived biofuel was in that mix. I'm guessing this is rather a way for the company involved to get attention and hence, more funding. I suppose the ends justify the means, though. It takes a lot of funding to start test plants for industrial production.
Which airline? (Score:5, Interesting)
A US airline carrier
Is rather vague. Would it kill the editors to read the first line of the article itself to see
The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said.
Considering how poorly many of the carriers are doing in terms of finances and customer satisfaction (not to mention customer service) it could be useful to know which one is trying the biofuel, even if it was a short test.
Re:We've been over this before (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It will be interesting to see how this plays ou (Score:5, Interesting)
The kinks in harvesting algae will be worked out with development. Give the industry time.
And of course it will take large quantities to produce large volumes of fuel, the up side is that algae is easy to grow anywhere and grows fast.
Solix (http://www.solixbiofuels.com/):
On a side note and off topic, what imbecile modded you down to -1? Your post is informative and includes a great link to the technology and should be modded up. I amazes me just how many morons are out there with mod points. Mr Malda, would you fix this please. Someone needs a time out.
Re:Gross is good (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't EAT the damn stuff dude, you burn it! Who the hell CARES what it's made of? Sure seems like a lot less trouble and easier on the earth than digging deep into the earth and dredging up old dead dinosaurs to burn.
Actually, most oil comes from dead algae [wikipedia.org], not dead dinosaurs. Check the section entitled 'Formation' in the aforementioned Wiki link. So in this regard, we're just changing the current status of the input material.
Re:Great, but ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know how they are creating this algae, but I think we'd run into a similar problem as ethanol, where you'd need to devote so much land to growing that actually using the algae as a replacement for petroleum isn't feasible
Not sure about your other questions but it doesn't take up much space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel [wikipedia.org]
Algae fuel, also called algal fuel, oilgae, algaeoleum or third-generation biofuel, is a biofuel from algae.
The record oil price increases since 2003, competing demands between foods and other biofuel sources and the world food crisis have ignited interest in algaculture (farming algae) for making vegetable oil, biodiesel, bioethanol, biogasoline, biomethanol, biobutanol and other biofuels. Among algal fuels' attractive characteristics: they do not affect fresh water resources, can be produced using ocean and wastewater, and are biodegradable and relatively harmless to the environment if spilled. Algae cost more per pound yet yield 30 times more energy per acre than other, second-generation biofuel crops. One biofuels company has claimed that algae can produce more oil in an area the size of a two-car garage than an football field of soybeans, because almost the entire algal organism can use sunlight to produce lipids, or oil. The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland, or 1.3 Belgiums. This is less than 1/7th the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000.
As of 2008, such fuels remain too expensive to replace other commercially available fuels, with the cost of various algae species typically between US$5â"10 per kg dry weight.[citation needed] But several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae oil production commercially viable.[8][11]
I can actually see it replacing oil if the production can be value engineered. Someone worked out you could build the Algae tanks in the Sonoran desert.
http://www.oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm [oakhavenpc.org]
Large-Scale Algae Production
Michael Briggs, a physicist in the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Biodiesel group, calculated the annual equivalent amount of biodiesel needed to meet all US ground transportation needs. (6) He assumes that all gasoline-powered vehicles could be replaced over timeâ"the average life of a car in the US is 20 yearsâ"by biodiesel vehicles. He assumes no change in the current average fleet mileage, but does factor in that diesel engines are more efficient. With these assumptionsâ"and a correction for the 2% lower mileage for biodieselâ"he arrives at 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel a year to meet US ground transportation needs. He does note that if people began to buy diesel hybrids (Mercedes showed its diesel hybrid concept car in June and it gets 70 mpg), the total fuel required might be reduced by a factor of three or more. (7)
Briggs used the numbers from NREL's Aquatic Species Programâ"that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced on 200,000 ha (roughly 500,000 acres) or about 780 square milesâ"to compute that 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel would requre 19 quads (140.8 / 7.5).This would require about 15,000 square miles (19 x 780), or about 9.5 million acresâ"which he notes is only about 12.5% of the area of the Sonoran desert of the Southwest. So using algae as a source of oil for biodiesel with the NREL productivity assumption, the acreage required is less than 3% of the 450 million acres now used to grow crops.
Based on a UNH research project, (8) Briggs then estimates the total cost of producing 140.8 billion gallons of oil (u
Re:Great, but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gross is good (Score:3, Interesting)
The substantive impact on food supplies from biofuels comes from food production resources (most obviously land) switching to fuel production. This is irrespective of whether foodstuffs are what is being converted.
It's unlikely the problematic existing algae blooms will be used for fuel. More algae will be created for this use - it will be farmed. The objective is to produce biofuel cheaply, tax-free and without being imported... er, I mean in a way that minimises impact to food production, i.e. intensively and using land poorly suited to food production (likely in tall tanks to boot). TFA appears to assert that algae production is well suited to this, though it's unclear if there is any basis.
Incidentally perhaps, the phosphates causing algae blooms are more usually associated with farming fertilizer than domestic chemicals. Along with artificially produced chemicals, faecal matter is used as fertilizer. Including human slurry.
There seems to be an assumption that we can produce something from nothing. Generally available resources are pretty well utilised, the best you can do is be more efficient. Technological improvements have the potential to improve efficiency through, in this case, production of algae as an alternative to oil if it is more efficient than alternative uses for the resources consumed.
Secondly, efficiency can be achieved through better use of the resources - living closer to work with good public transport and smaller cars when necessary. Why many people seem determined to take a side is beyond me, one camp seems motivated to massage their conscience while continuing an absurdly unsustainable lifestyle, while the other seem oblivious to the needs of the real world. The answer is an efficient, practical balance of technology and better utilisation of resources.
However I don't think we'll see a good balance. Markets are the real decider - oil got expensive and the response was remarkable and vast compared to decades of environmental concern. Currently the only mechanism for factoring in societal costs is if the government introduces a clumsy tax. Research grants and subsidies seem helpful but this artificially picks winners and government is notoriously bad at it. It seems likely the best we can hope for is for oil to get expensive again and stay that way.
*(economics calls all natural resources "land", even the sea)