The first civil jet to fly on 100 percent biofuel that meets petroleum jet fuel specifications took to the skies Oct. 29 in Ottawa, Ontario. Other commercial jets, such as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, have flown using biofuel blended with petroleum-based jet fuel. But this flight, engineered by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, is the first worldwide to use unblended biofuel in a commercial, non-military aircraft (a Falcon 20), according to the NRC.
First-generation biofuels based on crops have been under fire for some time because of their competition with human food and animal feed. Recently, the European Commission (EC) called for even stricter limits on the amount of food crops that can be turned into biofuels used in transportation. The EC is also promoting the use of second- and third-generation biofuels produced from algae, straw, and waste feedstocks.
Canada's National Research Council and the Canadian Space Agency have used the Falcon 20 jet, with modified hydraulic and aircraft fuel systems, for performing parabolic flight maneuvers in microgravity experiments. (Source: Canadian Space Agency)
The biofuel used in the flight is not based on a food crop. Instead, it was made from oilseed (Brassica carinata), a mustard and canola relative, developed by Applied Research Associates and Agrisoma Biosciences for the commercial airline industry. The fuel, called ReadiJet, was transformed by Applied Research Associates and Chevron Lummus Global. Applied Research Associates says it has developed a new proprietary process, catalytic hydrothermolysis, to produce the fuel from plants and algae. According to the company, the fuels can be used in existing turbine and diesel engines designed for petroleum fuels.
Agrisoma Bioscience Inc. has commercialized the industrial oilseed crop as Resonance Energy Feedstock. It's designed to grow in semi-arid regions, such as the southern prairies in western Canada, and is now being produced on a commercial scale. This year, more than 40 commercial farmers will grow the crop on more than 6,000 acres to make the biofuel. Agrisoma said in a press release that, to date, flights on biofuels have used blends with, at most, 50 percent biofuel combined with petroleum-based jet fuel.
The Falcon 20 aircraft that flew on the biofuel is a twin-engine commercial jet used by the National Research Council for conducting experiments. For example, the aircraft's hydraulic and fuel systems have been modified so it can perform parabolic flight maneuvers to achieve zero gravity for 15 to 25 seconds. The Falcon 20 also provides electrical power and data acquisition systems.
In the recent test flight, the Falcon 20 was followed by a T-33 jet aircraft, which collected information on the emissions produced by the oilseed-based biofuel. The NRC's research scientists will analyze this data to gauge the fuel's environmental impact.
Preliminary results are expected in the next few weeks. The research project is funded by the Canadian government's Clean Transportation Initiatives, and the Green Aviation and Development Network.
Thanks, Scott. I agree about the experimental aspect. However. I don't think I want to leave the health of the environment up to "market forces." Neither do the Europeans or the Japanese, among many others.
Ann, I agree. Compared to other fuels, modern-day biofuels are in their infancy. Who knows what the picture will look like 50 years from now - but if we don't experiment a bit - we won't have any alternatives to petroleum. It's an experiment and ultimately market forces will prevail.
Assuming the right process is found, you're right about the potential value of these plants as biofuel. But the 200 ecology, wildlife biology, and forestry scientists quoted in the NYT article I sent a link to are rightfully concerned. Plants are harder to control and domesticate than animals, and the risk of their pollen or seed/rootstock escaping is well illustrated by the kudzu example. Figuring out how to harvest what's already there as biomass and turning it into fuel might be a more useful and worthy research project for eradication.
We've got some really invasive plants here in my part of the Golden State. One that's consumed acres in my area is scotch broom: it's also a horrible wildfire hazard, as we re-discovered again a few years ago when it seemed like the whole state was burning up. There are teams of dedicated volunteers who go out in all kinds of weather to uproot it, and other bad guys, from state parks and other wild areas. I wonder if there are similar programs in OK?
I'm not talking about planting the stuff! Red Cedar consumes about 700 acres per DAY! We need to get a program going for simply harvesting it, to try to contain it. Then wrap it for the trasnport to processing plant, where it could be pulverized into carbon products, instead of CO2.
It also explodes in wildfire conditions, creating far nastier fires than native grasses alone.
The stuff reminds me of Mesquite, out west. Greasewood, some call it Hmmmm, maybe both would produce good jet fuel!
Rocky, I've heard of several proposals to turn invasive plants--even kudzu--into biofuel, so one might think why not red cedar, too. Sounds like red cedar is a candidate performance-wise. However, there's been concern about invasive plants escaping and causing even more of a problem than they did as a semi-wild pest. Kudzu, for example, escaped and became a huge problem only after farmers were paid to grow it as a hedge against erosion: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/invasive-grasses-as-biofuel-scientists-protest/
Oklahoma has this nasty invasive tree, Eastern Red Cedar. It was imported during the dustbowl as windbreak, which it did. Once the dust died down, the stuff has invaded pasturland, cropland, and national forests. It reduces the ground under it's needles to unusability by even cocroaches! Wildlife, grass, wheat, not even alfalfa will grow under it.
A test of it's shavings for biofuel resulted in very favorable grade of JetBioFuel.
Now all Oklahoma needs is a bit of investment to get the project off the ground.
Thanks, bobjengr. Using any substance in huge quantities for making fuel that we also use as a resource for something else will pose problems unless it's something we want to get rid of, such as CO2. I see all of these attempts as not necessarily the ultimate answer, but as part of the learning process and as possible partial answers.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
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