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First Flight of Jet Powered By Algae-Fuel

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fish-tanks-for-fuel-tanks dept.

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."

30 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. by Jonah+Bomber · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bio-fuel from algae is going to be an interesting field. It's easy to grow, difficult to harvest, and takes a lot of it to make into fuel. But it doesn't take up valuable cropland like corn does and really can be grown anywhere you're willing to build tanks. Solix (http://www.solixbiofuels.com/) is one such company working on the issue who see the potential of building tanks by power plants and then using the CO2 emissions to feed the algae.

  2. I wonder if... by xpuppykickerx · · Score: 5, Funny

    the plane could fly solely using two African swallows with a string around the plane, such as they would if they were carrying coconuts.

  3. We've been over this before by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 3, Informative
    And I posted to it then. It must have been a few years back. I did a calculation on how much energy one gets out of algae per acre, and to JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile. Not that Northern NJ isn't already one giant goo pile, but right now it's a giant goo pile full of houses and people and malls and highways and Dunkin Donut shops, all of it located on some of the nations most expensive real estate.

    Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value. Jet aircraft are insanely inefficient and guzzle fuel at prodigious rates, and require fuel that has a high energy density. As a consequence I do not see biofuel for jets as anything but a stop gap measure.

    I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    1. Re:We've been over this before by lee1026 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If I recall correctly, moving liquids in a pipe does not cost much energy. In theory, there should be no reason why you can't produce somewhere dirt cheap, and then transport it over with pipelines. Alternatively, we can use electric trains to transport the stuff, and then generate the electricity with nuclear power.

    2. Re:We've been over this before by MorderVonAllem · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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)

    3. Re:We've been over this before by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Informative

      I assume you're basing those calculations on a couple inches of algea covering a huge area. Algea farming for biofuels doesn't work that way. You put the algea in large tubes (10 ft tall, 2 ft around) and continuously churn the water until the density of algea reaches your target harvest point. Then drain the water and process the agea.

      As for biofuels for jets being a stop gap measure, how do you expect to power jets 50 years from now if (when?) oil begins to run out. I don't see charging up some Li-Ion batteries to fly several hundred people from New York to London.

      Call me a techno-optimist, but I have faith we can solve these kinds of problems with research and engineering. We've done it before and we'll do it again.

    4. Re:We've been over this before by colin_young · · Score: 5, Informative

      To quote from Ask The Pilot:

      "As for fuel consumption, let's look first at a short trip, from New York to Boston and back again. This flight is slightly under an hour in each direction. A typical aircraft on such a route, an Airbus A320, will consume somewhere around 10,000 pounds or 1,500 gallons of jet fuel over the course of the round trip. Assuming 140 passengers, that's 71 pounds of fuel, or just over 10 gallons per person. A lone occupant making the same trip by car would consume twice those amounts."

      I'm assuming that Mr. Smith as a professional airline pilot has got his numbers right. So where's your backup for your "insanely inefficient" claim?

    5. Re:We've been over this before by Gizzmonic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile

      So...no changes would be necessary, then?

      --
      (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    6. Re:We've been over this before by init100 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Jet aircraft are insanely inefficient and guzzle fuel at prodigious rates

      Actually not. If we e.g. take a common Boeing 737-400, with a fuel capacity of 23170 liters, a maximum range (fully loaded) of 4005 km and a seating capacity of 159 seats, it yields a fuel consumption of 0.036 liters of fuel per km per passenger, which translates to 65 passenger-miles per gallon of fuel.

      That's not so bad, is it? Sure, it assumes that the aircraft uses its maximum range (take-off comprises a significant share of the total fuel consumption, so a short flight is much more wasteful than a long flight) and contain a full load of passengers, but still, it's a pretty good number.

    7. Re:We've been over this before by WebCowboy · · Score: 4, Informative

      and to JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile.

      Not really a PILE--probably a nice thick coat of algae, but not a PILE. Besides, why would you bother covering New Jersey in it when you could grow it in the ocean or in lakes? Comparatively speaking the area of NJ is microscopic when you consider how much surface of the earth is covered in water. Not only that, you can grow it in "3D", so you can grow thousands of percent more Algae per acre of SURFACE than you could, say, CORN--that "darling" of the biofuel industry.

      Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value.

      I've heard, in fact, that Algae biofuel is MORE THAN 3000 PERCENT MORE ENERGY DENSE THAN CORN ETHANOL. Even myths about corn ethanol taking more energy to produce than it provides has been dispelled (though corn ethanol IS only a fraction as efficient as petroleum fuel and thus not a good alternative). As a matter of fact, if you set aside an area of ocean near the shore about the size of NJ, not only would it produce enough jet fuel to feed EWR/JFK traffic--it would be enough to fuel ALL FLIGHTS AND AUTOMOTIVE TRAFFIC IN THE UNITED STATES.

      The problem with algae fuel isn't growing the stuff (supply far exceed demand--it is often the byproduct of water pollution), or how much energy it provides (quite a lot in fact). The problem is that until now almost nothing has been invested in refining the stuff--virtually all the fuel refineries in the world are designed to refine "dead dinosaur residue". he refining infrastructure investment requirement to process that much algae is MASSIVE, which is the single biggest reason we don't all run our cars on algae today.

      I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.

      Thanks for the advice, Chicken Little, I'll take it under advisement.

      Of course, our society is extremely wasteful and energy inefficient right now when compared to potential, so ignoring efforts in reducing energy use overall perhaps the sky will indeed fall. However, nothing of the sort will happen as we learn to do everything more efficiently.

    8. Re:We've been over this before by Atanamis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To quote from Ask The Pilot:

      "As for fuel consumption, let's look first at a short trip, from New York to Boston and back again. This flight is slightly under an hour in each direction. A typical aircraft on such a route, an Airbus A320, will consume somewhere around 10,000 pounds or 1,500 gallons of jet fuel over the course of the round trip. Assuming 140 passengers, that's 71 pounds of fuel, or just over 10 gallons per person. A lone occupant making the same trip by car would consume twice those amounts."

      I'm assuming that Mr. Smith as a professional airline pilot has got his numbers right. So where's your backup for your "insanely inefficient" claim?

      You are comparing a form of mass transit to a single occupant car. Nobody would claim that a single occupant car was fuel efficient. Replace your single occupant car with two to four people, and the fuel usage drops to equal or half as much as an airplane. Put the people in a plane on an appropriately sized bus, and the fuel per person would drop even more. Use a train which has a dedicated path and moves at a constant speed (again, appropriately sized), and fuel usage would drop further.

      In today's transportation, energy efficiency is basically a non-issue. People value convenience and speed far, far more than energy usage. When energy costs rise as oil depletion nears, this will change. More money will be pumped into creating new energy sources and people will travel both less and more efficiently. Most office workers don't REALLY need to travel as often as they do. Most drivers don't REALLY need a large heavy vehicle for most of their transportation. Even public transportation in the US is vastly energy inefficient due to low usage patterns. The only crisis will come if oil prices impair the ability to produce and distribute food before alternatives are found. Everything else will scale back if and when it becomes necessary.

      --
      Atanamis
  4. Not that exciting? by henrygb · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is well known that biofuels can (at a cost) be refined to meet most specifications. Providing there is some mineral fuel in the blend to prevent microbial contamination and growth, using this should cause no problems apart from cost. But since jet kerosene is generally untaxed, it is harder to subsidise biofuel replacements than it is for road fuels.

  5. Re:Great, but ... by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, 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).

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  6. Re:Flight Tests by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can bet that the tests were performed for hundreds of hours in controlled environements, you don't just put a couple hundred million dollar airplane into the air and hope that everything works out ok. Of course, there are a ton of variables still to be tested with real world flights: lower air pressure, oxygen density, and temerature for a start.

    The thing people don't realize is that modern jet engines can burn practically anything, gas turbines are remarkably flexible. The real questions are how the new fuel affects range and maintanence issues, if the algea fuel gums up the fuel pumps after a half dozen flights, it's not going to see a whole lot of use until all the issues are resolved.

  7. Which airline? by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The description

    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.
  8. Re:Great, but ... by eln · · Score: 3, Funny

    I, for one, am dismayed that they were so quick to shoot down my idea of commercial aircraft being launched to their destinations with enormous slingshots. It requires no fuel, and would look wicked cool. Where's my grant, huh? Why do these jokers who want to fly planes using used grease from a McDonald's fryer get all the money, and I don't get squat?

    All I need is a big tree and a really big elastic band at every airport, and I could solve this problem tomorrow!

  9. Re:Great, but ... by sbeckstead · · Score: 5, Informative

    They grow it in huge tanks that take up very little space compared to the mass they produce. It's actually one of the most viable sources of biomass that they have come up with yet, and the waste after extracting the oils can be used as fertilizer. So Algae is a win win bio fuel.

    --
    Why bother
  10. Gross is good by WebCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Eew. Algae. What's next, a flight powered by athlete's foot?

    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.

    I'm also hoping it shuts up the idiots who jump up and down yelling "but how will we feed the children?!?!" whenever someone advocates biofuels. BIO in biofuels does NOT equal FOOD. If I recall, algal blooms are in OVERabundance due to human activity (our detergents ending up in water and supplying phosphates to grow the stuff in excess--tainting our water and killing fish, etc). Seems like an elegant solution to me.

    Athletes foot wouldn't be next, but I can thing of another abundant biofuel source that we have a hard time eliminating and that nobody would eat: fecal waste. Everything from poultry litter and cow manure to even human sewerage. How is THAT for gross?

    Also, with biofuels, the PROCESSED end product is chemically similar or even identical to conventional hydrocarbon fuels. If you run straight corn oil in your car of COURSE it'll smell like the fryer at the local burger joint, but you don't run straight algae in a jet engine!

    Incidentally, have you ever smelled NORMAL jet fuel, or better yet, the EXHAUST from an engine running on it? Jets typically run on a naptha/kerosene blend, which besides being a carcinogen will give you a real bad headache afer a few minutes (unless you're into doing things like snorting tremclad or shoving jiffy markers up your nose or other "fun with fumes" I guess). The exhaust smells similarly unpleasant--almost, but not quite as nice, as deeply inhaling the cloud of black sooty smoke that comes out of the tailpipe of an old diesel truck with fouled injectors.

    SO, I'm guessing that it'll perhaps make the airports smell BETTER if algae-derived biofuels become more commonplace. It's also much better than using exotic and/or edible sources, such as coconuts.

    1. Re:Gross is good by Stachybotris · · 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, 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.

    2. Re:Gross is good by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Incidentally, have you ever smelled NORMAL jet fuel, or better yet, the EXHAUST from an engine running on it? Jets typically run on a naptha/kerosene blend...

      Actually, they tend to avoid blending it with naphtha these days - it's a bit dangerous. The fuel itself doesn't smell particularly bad, although the exhaust usually does. That's primarily because aircraft fuel - contrary to popular belief - is much "dirtier" than the fuel you'd put in your car. Jet-turbine engines can burn just about anything, so they can tolerate a much higher level of impurity than your typical piston engine.

    3. Re:Gross is good by DaveGod · · 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)

    4. Re:Gross is good by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, I know, I work on them for a living :) I wouldn't exactly call them "simpler", though. The basic concept is simple enough, but large jet-turbine engines are anything but simple.

      And yes, the fuel is considerably cheaper. There's no point spending extra money in processing the fuel when your engines can handle a high level of impurity. Basic economics.

  11. Re:It will be interesting to see how this plays ou by tuxgeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's easy to grow, difficult to harvest, and takes a lot of it to make into fuel.

    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/):

    Since the whole organism converts sunlight into oil, algae can produce more oil in an area the size of a two-car garage than an entire football field of soybeans.

    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
  12. Re:Algae For Fuel Is Not Cool. by Meumeu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Putting those millions, nay, billions of LIVING organisms in such terrible working conditions is a crime against algaenity.

    Fixed that for you.

  13. Re:Gross by timelorde · · Score: 3, Funny

    If they were smart, they'd make it smell like coconut suntan lotion.

    Mmmmm...

  14. Re:Gross by CompMD · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can smell something outside the outside the cabin of a pressurized airplane, you have bigger problems than being offended by the smell.

  15. Re:Great, but ... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is why we need to start building light and fast rail NOW. Link all the cities above X million people, a hub in cities with more than X0 million people. Rail doesn't need to carry ANY energy. (Overhead power lines), rail can do regenerative braking and dump all that power back into the grid, power generation can be centralized and cleaned (rather than a million little diesel engines running around).

  16. Re:Great, but ... by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rail sucks for numerous reasons. Fast rail competitive with airlines really, really sucks; rail that can safely carry people at 500mph would be insanely, absurdly expensive, because you can't afford a single failure if you're going to kill hundreds of people in a derailment. Worse than that, rail is much harder to protect against even low-grade attackers because it only takes one whacko deliberately damaging the rails in the middle of nowhere to cause such a disaster.

    Finding an alternate affordable fuel source for airliners is going to be much easier than making fast trains that are competitive with airliners. Trains are an attempt to use a 19th century solution for 21st century problems.

  17. Re:Great, but ... by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  18. Re:It will be interesting to see how this plays ou by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Algae is the only really viable bio-diesel source. The closest thing to it is switchgrass, but even that can't be fully turned into bio-diesel. The only - and significant - issue with algae-derived bio-diesel is that it's difficult to efficiently turn algae into diesel.

    What astounds me though is the number of times people try to turn slow-growing foodstuff into fuel. Coconut oil? I'm sure the same genius came up with the idea to use corn for ethanol fuel. Here's why those are dead ends:
    - they require a lot of surface, water and nutrients.
    - only a small fraction of the entire plant gets used.
    - impacts food prices.

    Compare that with algae, which:
    - can grow in vats of arbitrary size.
    - can be grown in sewage treatment plants.
    - main growth restriction is light.
    - the entire organism is used in the production of the fuel.

    Every time I hear someone advocate fuel from coconuts or corn, I'm wondering how much he's getting paid by corn and coconut growers.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.