aviation biofuel a noxious weed

JATROPHA IS GROWING ITS WING:

"We're quite confident the cost of producing jatropha oil is cheaper than the cost of extracting oil from these new petroleum-based fields (OFFSHORE)."
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AUSTRALIA may become a source of feedstocks for second-generation biofuel capable of producing a sustainable replacement for jet fuel.

Air New Zealand boss Rob Fyfe has become the latest to suggest that northern Australia would be a good place to cultivate jatropha curcas, a hardy plant that can grow in arid lands not suitable for forests or food crops and is a good source of bio-oil.

His comments last week came after European group Airbus recently expressed similar sentiments and even produced rough calculations on how much land would be needed to supply Australia's jet fuel requirements.

Both companies are aware that the fast-growing jatropha plant is considered a noxious weed by the Australian states most suitable for growing it.

But Fyfe is hopeful that Australian authorities might reconsider jatropha's status now that it has shown fuel potential and hundreds of companies, including some in Australia, are preparing to grow the tree.

Fyfe says jatropha is currently harvested manually and this, to some degree, influences where it is grown but he believes this will change as mechanical harvesting is developed.

"And one of the most obvious areas when we look around the world is northern Australia," he says. "The conditions are right: it doesn't need a particularly arable soil environment and it's clearly a lot easier to harvest on flat land in terms of any mechanical harvesting techniques."

As a New Zealander, Fyfe acknowledges the importance of stringent biological controls. But he remains hopeful the necessary regimes can be developed to give countries such as Australia confidence that an industry can be introduced commercially without threatening the biological and agricultural environment.

"Having now established that (jatropha) has a value and use which was probably never previously understood at the time it was classified as a noxious weed, then my sense is there's an opportunity to revisit it," he says. "I would certainly hope so."

An airline chief talking about biofuel would have been dismissed as a blue-sky pipedream not so long ago.

The first generation of biofuels were unsuitable for aircraft: two years ago the industry was seen as an environmental lost cause.

But biofuel technology has been developing rapidly and the industry predicts that a commercial plant that's able to produce significant quantities for use in jet engines will be running as early as 2012.

That's also around the time that Air New Zealand hopes to be using about 10 per cent biofuel in its domestic fleet.

The Kiwi flag-carrier kicked off a new round of second-generation biofuel testing last week with an historic two-hour Boeing 747-400 flight using a 50:50 blend of conventional Jet A1 and biofuel derived from jatropha.

The successful flight produced no obvious problems but data from the test will be analysed and the jumbo jet's number one engine taken apart to check for anomalies.

Continental Airlines is due to follow up with a Boeing 737-800 flight testing a blend of jet and biofuel, while Japan Air Lines will this month test a biofuel using another second-generation plant feedstock, camelina, on a 747-300.

The consortia have different partners -- the Air NZ jumbo was powered by Rolls-Royce engines, while JAL is partnering with Pratt & Whitney and Continental with CFM and General Electric -- but they are all part of an industry push.

The aim of the tests is to provide data from different planes, engines and fuel so they can be used by committees in Europe and the US to certify biofuels for use in existing jet aircraft and fuel distribution systems.

The aim is to show that biofuel derived from a variety of sources is as safe as conventional jet fuel.

"The reason we're doing a variety of feedstocks is to get everyone confident that there is no issue with what the feedstock is; it's to do with what the result is," says Boeing Commercial Airplanes managing director for environmental strategy Billy Glover.

"It's already under discussions and the data from the flight demonstrations along with the flight data and the lab test data will go into research reports that will be submitted to the committees later this year.

"We think it's pretty safe it will be (certified) within two years and hopefully a lot less than that. But it's hard to predict. Until the people see the data, they won't tell you."

The difficulty with developing an aviation biofuel is the exacting standards it must meet and the fact that kerosene, with its high energy density, is hard to replace.

Jet fuel also has to operate over a wide temperature range, starting at a low freeze point of -47C to -40C so it can sit in extremely cold wing tanks on long flights.

"But from a safety point of view of handling on the aircraft and on the ground, it has to have a flash point of at least 38C," says Rolls-Royce fuels specialist Chris Lewis. "So they are two quite conflicting requirements ... it's very difficult to get those two properties from any other medium."

Also important, says Lewis, is thermal stability. Fuel is also used as coolant for aircraft systems, including the engines -- but must also combust in the engine at a defined temperature.

And it needs a high level of purity so that when it is turned into a gas in the engine turbine it does not leave solids or contaminants that could affect performance or longevity.

Lewis says the certification process basically comes in two parts: one that looks at the composition of the fuel and some performance properties, and another that considers "allowable source materials".

"This is because we have to control where the fuel comes from and ensure that this is fit for purpose," he says. "At the current time, the jatropha material we're using doesn't meet that second part. It meets the first part but it's not an allowable source."

The good news is that testing by Rolls-Royce before the Air NZ flight revealed it met or exceeded all the requirements.

It is probably even purer than existing Jet A1, says Lewis, with lower sulphur content and less trace metals.

These results suggest the fuel can be "dropped in" to any existing engine or fuel distribution system without making major modifications.

Airlines are keen to develop a "drop in" biofuel because, even in better times, they cannot afford to replace expensive and long-lived planes. But they know their environmental performance is under scrutiny and while biofuel will still produce carbon dioxide, it will have a significantly smaller carbon footprint over its life cycle.

Enter companies such as UOP, a refining business owned by Honeywell whose technology produces more than 65 per cent of the world's biofuel petrol and 85 per cent of its biodegradable detergent.

UOP general manager renewable energy and chemicals Jennifer Holmgren says UOP researchers were told they would never get the low freeze point, the high flash point or the high energy content needed for an aviation biofuel.

But they have done just that using a process similar to one already used to produce conventional fuel and expect to license it mid this year.

Holmgren estimates the carbon footprint of a biofuel can be as little as 25 per cent of conventional fuels.

"The reason is very simple: the carbon dioxide emitted in use is completely recycled because it's picked up by the plants that are then grown to create the next wave of fuel."

Holmgren also believes the fuel will be cost-competitive with existing biofuel. "We can't afford to pay more for our energy, so the fuel is made in a process where the capital investment is equivalent to conventional refining fuels where costs will be competitive with petroleum.

"The fact is that more than 80 per cent of fuel cost is actually from the feedstock cost and that's why initiatives on the algae side and the jatropha side are so important because they are driving the cost of the feedstock down.

"We think we can get to large-scale commercial production by 2012, which I think is consistent with Air New Zealand's aspirations."

Holmgren says it is essential to develop drop-in replacements for conventional fuel but she says there is a strong need to develop biofuels.

"Global energy demand is growing at a rate of over 2 per cent per year. What that means is that demand will double over the next 35 years.

"Even if that number is 50 years, stop and think about what that means. In our lifetimes we will be using twice as much energy as we are today. How is that possible? How is that going to happen? For us that means alternatives have to come in and play an important role."

The question of which alternative is best still has to be answered but the aviation biofuel consortia are laying down some serious rules for their tests.

The Air NZ jatropha had to be sourced from land that had not been forest or virgin grassland for at least 20 years and that was rain fed, not irrigated.

The experts agree that algae, which needs much less area to produce and reproduce at prodigious rates, are the long-term holy grail of alternative fuel feedstocks but say algae supporters still face technical challenges.

Holmgren calls jatropha and camelina "bridging feedstocks", noting they are available now and could have a significant impact in as little as three to five years. She says they will also provide valuable experience on the longer-term journey to future biofuels.

"You can't wait on the sidelines and wait 10 years and say okay, the perfect biological future will be lignocellulose or algae-based and we're just going to sit around and wait for that to happen," she says.

For Fyfe, the biofuels push is an essential part of his airline's strategy and important for the New Zealand tourism industry, which makes up 10 per cent of the nation's GDP.

"We strongly believe that if we can position New Zealand and Air New Zealand at the forefront of protecting the Earth's environment, that will attract more people to come and explore what this nation's all about and experience this environment," he says.

"So our environmental interests, our strategic interests and our commercial interests are totally aligned.

"We're not making trade-offs here.

"This is just sound business sense for us of how we should be running our business."

Fyfe admits that with the price of crude oil falling, there could be a risk that the impetus for alternative fuels will diminish.

But one thing all airlines have learnt from the recent oil spike, he says, is that the price of oil does not necessarily reflect the cost of getting it out of the ground.

"The cost of getting a barrel of oil out of the ground six months ago was the same as it was today, yet crude oil has come down from $US140 ($196) a barrel to $US37-38 a barrel. The new oil fields are very expensive.

"So you look at the latest finds such as the deep-sea fields off the coast of Brazil and the tar sands up in Canada, the cost of those marginal new fields is much, much higher than the traditional cost of getting oil out of the ground in Saudi or Iran or Iraq.

"We're quite confident the cost of producing jatropha oil is cheaper than the cost of extracting oil from these new petroleum-based fields."

The Air NZ chief also hopes the introduction of biofuels will help stabilise fuel prices.

"The perception of oil is that it's a finite resource, whereas biofuels are by their nature far less finitely constrained in their supply. And in theory, in time, that should reduce to some degree the supply and demand volatility that you get with price of fuel because you can flex the supply to a greater degree."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24872142-643,00.html