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First Flight of Jet Powered By Algae-Fuel
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."
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).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This linkshows a method of growing it vertically so allow optimal light exposure which apparently allows for greater growth (not sure how practical it is but at least it doesn't have to take much surface area)
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.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
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, 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.
Thanks to the inconvenience of air travel a train doesn't have to go 500mph to compete with the airlines. A trip via Accella is often faster than the equivalent trip by plane because it goes from city center to city center and doesn't have the security theater surrounding it.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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)