Honeywell & Airbus To Turn Algae Into Jet Fuel

mystermarque alerts us to an announcement by Honeywell, JetBlue Airways, International Aero Engines, and Airbus about a program to develop jet fuel from algae and other biomass. They hope to supply nearly 1/3 of the demand for jet fuel from these sources by 2030. A Wall Street Journal blog points out that even if this program's goals are met, we will be worse off by 2030 in terms of jet kerosene released into the atmosphere, assuming that the rapid growth in the aviation sector continues apace.

Comments

Some assumption.

[jesdynf]

Rapid growth in aviation continuing?

You think so?

I suppose I don't know a lot about the topic, but domestic aviation's more important to the US than to just about anybody else, innit? And the US airlines are busy melting down.

The question was "aviation", and not "domestic aviation", but I think domestic flights are where most miles are racked up yearly.

Re:Some assumption.

[garyrich]

"But there was far more than 48 hours of grounded flights contributing to the economic trouble in the wake of 9/11"

Of course, but I'm not sure anyone realized just how much impact the "stuff" economy would get hit if we had not gotten the planes back in the air. We depend on air freight more than we think we do. Not too many people would starve if they were down for a week, but your supermarket (as an example) would look very different very quickly.

Industries like cut flowers would implode fast. I wouldn't miss them all that much, but it adds up to a lot of people out of work. A lot of core infrastructure assumes that a critical spare part can be fedexed overnight - no spares are kept on hand. Your power grid goes down for lack of a $100 part and it snowballs from there.

At the time the news talked about people stranded various places. That's a bummer. I was working in manufacturing then and was starting to hear a lot of panic. "Just in time" manufacturing and management pressure to increase inventory turns means nobody keeps supplies on hand. Somewhere in teh critical chain there is frequently something that you can't get soon enough by truck or train.

I've got a secret for them

[blhack]

Algae is made out of carbon!

Don't anybody tell the hippies!

Look, if they're doing this to save money, then great, good for them. If they're doing it to help our economy by keeping everything in house (and not installing a pipeline of cash from here to Saudi Arabia) then awesome! But if they're doing this to somehow trick themselves into believing that they are "helping the cause" then they need to pull their head out of their ass.

We NEED hydrogen power. Not fuel cells, not batteries, combustion of hydrogen and oxygen into water. Electrolysis is not difficult.

Step 1: Build nuclear power plant
Step 2: Split salt water into hydrogen and oxygen
Step 3: Profit
Step 4: Goto 1

This crap that we're doing right now is hurting the problem. Driving a Prius isn't helping, buying a hybrid Chevy Suburban isn't helping. Elect officials that build mass transit systems. Our cities our built with the assumption that people can very cheaply get from one end of it to the other, but they can't anymore.

Priuses and other hybrids are not addressing the root of the problem, which is our assumption of cheap transportation. THAT is what we need to cure. The neo-hippies with their lattes and they horn rimmed glasses are not helping the cause, they're hurting it by buying into a false reality and encouraging others to do so.

Re:I've got a secret for them

[strider200142]

You make a very good point! Mass transit was killed by a lack of interest by the masses (we all want our OWN car) and the greedy interest of various companies. Just look at LA! That city had the best train system at the time, and now its completely gone... Whether or not a hydrogen economy is the answer is best left to some SERIOUS research. Releasing that much water vapor could have significant weather effects. Creating a higher demand for water may have disastrous effects on society. I'd say the best bet is mass transit first and foremost. Such systems greatly improve the efficiency of moving large numbers of people around, and efficiency truly is the goal. Next society should consider how to diversify its energy consumption so that we aren't invested 100% in any given tech.

Re:I've got a secret for them

[WalksOnDirt]

Hydrogen might eventually work out fine for airline fuel (where liquid seems a feasible option), but so far I haven't seen any storage scheme that looks good for automobiles. Hydrogen barely gets you better range than a modern battery would, and yet it may require a whole new infrastructure to distribute it.

Re:I've got a secret for them

[Thelasko]

Our cities our built with the assumption that people can very cheaply get from one end of it to the other, but they can't anymore. You are correct, but do you consider why that's the case? Ever look at housing prices on a website like Zillow? Living near major centers of employment is extremely expensive. The only way people afford those homes is because they are rich, and/or gave up their vehicle. But what happens if they have to buy a lot of groceries or need to travel farther than their feet/public transportation will allow? Traditionally it's been cheaper to live far from work and own a car. High energy prices are not going to change that, it will only increase the demand for homes close to jobs. The only thing I see changing the status quo are companies like Zipcar, who rent out vehicles cheaply, to people who only need them occasionally. Yes, better urban development would solve alot of our energy problems, but economics wont let that happen.

Re:I've got a secret for them

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

I completely agree with you. At least when you pull the carbon from the air and put it back you are maintaining an equilibrium instead of bringing carbon stored in the ground an releasing it into the air.

Except you don't. You pull it from the oceans. Both from upper & lower layers.

But the oceans contain MUCH more carbon than the oil fields, and that *will* be brought up, because algae NEED co2 (like every single plant does), and for plants more co2=better (plant growth climbs until they have about 60% co2 in the athmosphere, realistically you can get maybe 1% to them). So algae farms are going to want to pump up co2 from the lower layers of the ocean (much, much easier and faster than getting it from the athmosphere).

So I do believe the poster was right. Nobody tell the green nuts, okay ?

However, in reality, adding co2 to the athmosphere makes it a LOT easier to increase crop yields world wide. And it doesn't "heat up the earth" (unfortunately, because that too would increase the number of people that the earth can support, and we all know that number needs to go up fast, unless you want WWIII in a few years).

Re:I've got a secret for them

[Rhinobird]

Also, here's a site that has 15 points against using hydrogren as fuel. Number 7 is really interesting.

7. There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen.

Re:I've got a secret for them

[LWATCDR]

Okay buddy. I am not a big fan of ecco nuts but...
Algae gets it's carbon from the air. It is carbon neutral. Hydrogen as a fuel is a mess. It is hard to store. Even liquid hydrogen has a lot less energy per cubic foot than jet fuel or gasoline. Tank size is an issue in just about all forms of transport. Also hydrogen really does some nasty stuff to many metals, It is really hard to keep from leaking, and as you pointed out it isn't an energy source.
I don't think cheap transport is going to go away anytime soon. We will just have to find new ways to make it cheap.

Will air travel return to its 1950s elite status?

[swb]

Air travel has become quite commonplace, I wonder if the rising fuel costs will make it economically non-viable to fly the number of routes and schedules that the airlines fly now if they end up having to raise the price to accommodate the ever-rising costs of fuel, turning air travel into one of those exclusive things it used to be 50 years ago.

I also wonder if we'll see a renaissance in train travel in the US as air travel gets more expensive.

Re:So what?

[icebike]

A wall street Journal BLOG? This is now a source?

As for the Rapid Growth in the Aviation sector, precisely where is that growth? There are fewer flights today than there were 5 years ago.

And as older planes are replaced the newer ones are more efficient.

Rapid growth in the aviation sector?

[Weaselmancer]

Someone must not be reading the news much lately.

Seems like every time you turn on the news you can't help but see some airline going broke.

Personally I don't mind much. I'm hoping we see a resurgence of train travel. Easier, cheaper, and somehow a more romantic way to travel.

Take an airplane when you're in a hurry. Take a train when you want to have a nice easy experience traveling. Looking out the windows at the cows, sleeping with the click-clack of the rails passing under your car - that kind of a thing. I know that's not the current situation today but I'd like the future to look like that.

I'd happily tack on an extra day or two to my vacation if it meant I could enjoy dinner in a nice dining car. And not get frisked and scanned and have my orange juice confiscated by airport security when I go to board.

Re:Rapid growth in the aviation sector?

[p0tat03]

IMHO we'll see a resurgence of trains in the near future. Airline prices are shooting through the roof (it just cost me $700 round trip to fly my gf from the east coast to the west), and eventually trains will become competitive in the short to mid haul routes. Coast-to-coast will always be in airline territory, but I can totally see a revitalized railroad industry gutting the short-to-mid haul travel.

Here's the deal. With airplanes I have to put up with annoying security, crappy service, high prices, noisy interiors, cramped seats... the only real advantage I get over trains is that I get there faster.

But, as we know, almost all of the eastern seaboard airports are stuffed beyond comprehension. Delays are rampant, and increased security only adds to travel time. Compare with a train where I can walk on, sit down, and go. As the airport congestion and security problem gets worse, we'll get to a point where taking the train for mid-haul routes is time-competitive with flying. Add the recent advances in high-speed rail, and we can make the "effective distance" of trains pretty far indeed.

And I bet you burn a HECK of a lot more fuel (dollar per passenger) between Boston and NY by flying, than by train.

The trick here is governmental assistance. We don't have the rail capacity in the country anymore to handle mass passenger rail like the old days. This is not a problem that rail companies themselves can resolve - there needs to be a concerted national effort to modernize and expand our rail infrastructure.

I've posted this before: when I worked in Ottawa, Canada, I used to travel back to Toronto fairly regularly. It costs about $150 round-trip, for about 500km of travel. That's already cheaper than flying, and rolling in check-in, security, and the requisite delays, the train only arrived about an hour later than the plane, which is fine by me. In exchange? I get a big seat, much legroom, WiFi on-board, a plug, and a soft click-clack instead of the roar of a jet engine.

Re:So what?

[wizbit]

There are fewer flights today than there were 5 years ago. [citation needed]

If anything, there are an order of magnitude *more* takeoffs and landings than 5 years ago thanks to the explosion in regional airline flights - the puddlejumpers that hold 50 passengers and fly from Detroit to St. Louis instead of NYC to LA.

This has actually contributed to delayed/canceled flights, which have also skyrocketed, but that's more an infrastructure and logistics problem.

Fewer people are flying on those planes, but this also lets the airline offer more flights, which passengers have requested again and again - more travel options.

Cars were better for the environment

[tjstork]

Trains used to be everywhere in the city because it was the only mode of transportation available. You have to remember that at the time diesel was becoming available and the internal combustion engine was being to overwhelm the steam engine. You should see some pictures of the railroad yards in downtown Philadelphia back when the PRR was at its peak. Everything was covered in black coal soot and people living in the cities just hated the steam engine but tolerated it as a necessary evil. Railroads, now viewed nostalgically today, were back then viewed with the same sort of hatred as Microsoft is by slashdot fans.

Yes, its true, back in the day, the greedy corporation was in fact the steam train operators that ran the steam railroads. To some extent, people viewed the likes of GM as a form of liberation from a railroad monopoly, just as much as people cheered Microsoft when they supplanted IBM and cheer now tiny Linux service companies as they threaten to supplant Microsoft. Basically, what we are doing is evolution through corporate service. Once we've realized in our minds whatever good can be ascribed to a company, we get rid of it.

To get back to point, its all too easy to see that, as soon as GM and Ford salespeople walked into cities talking up the virtues of buses over trains, they weren't exactly walking into a hostile environment. A bunch of cities even helped things along by passing ordinances effectively banning steam engines and then later on, even regular trains, for various health and safety reasons. The car, of all things, were not just a symbol of freedom from the evil railroad corporation, not just a symbol of private ownership, but they were actually -better for the environment too-!

That just cracks me up. That and, the likes of Ivy League Univ of PA.

Re:Cars were better for the environment

[tjstork]

The trains in the city were electric, not steam/coal powered

No, it was a mix. You still needed to have steam trains to haul both freight and commuter traffic between city. Electric trains didn't have the power to make steep grades and so steamers would be still be used, for example, to K4s.

I had a bunch of pictures in a longer post explaining this in more detail, but slashdot's new stupid interface got the best of me and now its gone.

Anyway, the picture I'm trying to paint is this. Commuters circa the 1920s would probably take some sort of a electric train, be it subway or trolly to a central station. There, they would transfer to a steamer for travel between those cities that did not have electrified routes. So, to get somewhere, you would have walk a bit, take one form of transit, then get off, wait on a platform, then get another, and then from there go to another city, and repeat the same process. You had a big mix of ugly electric wires or dangerous third rails everywhere, and choking smoke from steam engines to do it. What's even worse is that, in that whole system, pressure from cars and worn infrastructure abused by the nationalizations of two wars basically meant that railroad service was pretty unreliable. Imagine how pissed you would be, for example, if your commuter train was late and you missed your intracity train.

So, when the car came out, its advantages were obvious to anyone who travelled. You only had to get into and exit your vehicle once. You stayed warm and dry the whole trip. You didn't have to walk to and from any stations and the only cost you needed to have to make a trip was gasoline (which was dirt cheap). By the time you get to the 1950s, Eisenhower was launching the interstates, New Jersey and other states were building their turnpikes, and everyone who had any brain was buying a car.

The great irony is that, as much as we say the coal fired locomotive was evil and polluting, to this day, a steam engine pulling 100 passengers built even with 1920s designs would emit about the same CO2 as not much more than 4 or 5 modern cars. A K4s (the most common steam passenger engine on the PRR circa the golden era) only had about a two thousand horespower, if that, and even today a modern locomotive diesel is about 4000 hp. Trains a pretty good deal, environmentally.

If we had a "clean coal" steamer service, we'd be way ahead of the curve...

Re:Cars were better for the environment

[smellsofbikes]

>If we had a "clean coal" steamer service, we'd be way ahead of the curve...

A hydrogen-powered locomotive would have a number of advantages over hydrogen-powered cars: it's pulling tens of thousands of tons already and won't mind the weight of thick-wall stainless steel tubing that doesn't leak or embrittle badly, and one big fuel depot can handle the cryogenic storage requirements, with a small number of people who have had training in doing cryo fuel transfers, rather than having to build thousands of hydrogen storage tanks at gas stations and make something that's sufficiently idiot-proof that the morons who think it's a good idea to drive down the highway while talking on the phone and trimming their nose hairs don't explode themselves.

(that isn't the longest sentence I've ever written, but it's probably the longest I've written on slashdot...)

BTW, I'm not saying that a hydrogen economy is a good idea. I am saying that if we were to try it, locomotives would be a better beneficiary than automobiles.

Welded tracks have no sound

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern rail road tracks are welded and feature no click-clack sounds.

But maybe the good old us has not invented this technology yet? I hear large parts of the US rail network is not even electrified. :)

Simple solution

[catmistake]

Nationalize the Oil companies and raid their accounts. Make fuel free the way roads and bridges are "free," made a part of the Department of Interior, subsidized by new taxes. Use the windfall amounts of money (from siezed oil money) to bail out the airlines and R&D new fuel sources, & use whats left to pay down national debt.

Re:A blogger says it's bad...

[ckaminski]

Cheap fuel has allowed local retailers to die at the hands of megacorps like WalMart, Target, Kohls, etc. Not that I think this is altogether bad, Walmart, et al. have brought certain excellent efficiencies to the free market which the rest of the world can adopt, but cheap fuel has allowed the economy to build huge mega shopping centers at the expense of local retail.

Expensive fuel makes having retailers closer to home, fewer trucks eating fuel delivering product. Hmm...

Re:Will air travel return to its 1950s elite statu

[swb]

Why is that though? Has the rail system (with regards to people moving) simply died due to neglect? Noise/speed requirements as trains can't travel so fast in urban areas? Are there too many stops along the way to make it worth it?

The rail system has collapsed due to its own lack of economic viability, mismanagement and the time factor, which can't be discounted.

When I was a kid, we'd take a 3 week vacation in the winter and at least two weeks over the summer, and my dad had a crap job as a semi-trailer salesman. I have a "good" job as an IT consultant and my wife is a marketing executive, and I can barely get away for 2 weeks a year and she the same. We *have* to take fast vacations, and we almost always fly out early in the morning or ASAP after work to maximize our vacations.

But I think most famously Amtrak was run as a unionized government entity that nobody really cared about. Their rolling stock rotted, they lost money, service was awful, and Congress kept underfunding or threatening to cut funding. Every said "too bad" when lines got cut (eg, Minneapolis to Duluth -- an easy 2-3 hour drive, but scenic and relaxing on the train) but people who did try to take it often spent hours stopped due to mechanical problems -- a cow-orker of mine took it to Whitefish, Montana and spent 12 *hours* at a dead stop due to some problem. She rented a sleeper car for big bucks, but those that didn't suffered.

I think for rail to see a significant revival it will take a big investment in service (rolling stock, administration, in-train service, scheduling, express routes), a doubling or tripling of airfares and possible some innovations (eg, bringing your car with you on a car-carrier) and social/business acceptance of the 3 week vacation.

Re:Abandon this project?

[PitaBred]

Algae farm != traditional farm. Hell, algae grows GREAT in the desert or plains, in greenhouses. Land that gets a ton of sun, but the soil is basically unusable for any kind of farming.

See this link for more details on an algae farm