http://www.greenbiz.com/article/boeing-aims-quit-fossil-fuel-habit-tobacco-based-jet-fuel
Boeing aims to quit fossil fuel habit with tobacco-based jet fuel
Will Nichols
Wednesday, April 15, 2015 - 12:30am
The scientific consensus around smoking being bad for your health is
famously as solid as that which demonstrates how human activity is
contributing to climate change. Now Boeing and partner South African
Airways (SAA) may have found a way to tackle both problems by producing
renewable jet fuel from a special type of tobacco plant.
The two companies have teamed up for a pilot project that has seen about
120 acres (50 hectares) in Limpopo province planted with Solaris, a
nicotine-free, energy-rich tobacco plant. Oil from the plant's seeds
will be converted into jet fuel that Boeing says can reduce carbon
emissions by as much as 80 percent.
In the next few years, SAA will conduct a test flight using the fuel,
taking the next step on its drive to be "the world's most
environmentally sustainable airline." In doing so, it will follow in the
footsteps of a range of carriers, including BA, Lufthansa, Virgin
Atlantic and most recently China's Hainan Airlines, in experimenting
with greener fuels. In fact, more than 1,600 passenger flights using
sustainable aviation biofuel have been completed since the fuel was
approved for commercial use in 2011.
Aviation industry embraces biofuels
Two years later, the industry committed to carbon neutral growth from
2020 (PDF), but is still struggling to work out exactly how to achieve
that goal.
Darrin Morgan, director of Boeing Commercial Airplanes' sustainable
biofuel strategy, said airlines increasingly are turning to biofuels to
reduce their emissions as the industry lacks other realistic options.
"Ground transport is electrifying as we speak. Power generation — they
have many options to go towards renewables and decarbonize," he told
BusinessGreen. "Aviation doesn't. We're going to have to have liquid
hydrocarbons for a very long time."
The challenge for the industry is that the oil majors who supply them
have made limited progress in delivering the lower-carbon fuels the
sector craves. "Aviation uses only about 6 or 7 percent of total oil
barrel use, so most of the oil companies view aviation as a very small
player and it's hard for them to justify the extra effort to supply our
needs," Morgan explained. "So part of why we realized we had to be so
active in shaping the fuel landscape for ourselves is because we don't
have other options to diversify."
Biofuels in South Africa
Biofuels plantations have been blamed for deforestation and other
land-use change. Campaigners have warned these problems will get worse
if airlines start demanding large quantities of alternative fuels.
Morgan suggests that in South Africa, at least, this should not be a
problem. "About 14 percent of the arable land in South Africa is
under-utilized or unutilized," he said. "If just a small percentage of
that 14 percent were used for Solaris or other similar feedstocks, you
would provide enough fuel for all of SAA's needs. It's not displacing
essential food crops [and] it's a drop in the bucket in terms of total
land footprint to produce quite a bit of what is needed."
If Solaris reaches a critical mass in South Africa, Morgan can see the
potential for investing in refineries in the country, churning out not
just jet fuel, but also road transport fuel and renewable chemicals.
This could revolutionize a country that as Morgan puts it, "failed to
win the oil lottery" and, like many others in the region, relies on
expensive imports of already refined petroleum.
Solaris is still in its early stages, so we will have to wait to get a
picture of its true potential among the huge range of alternate fuels
that will be needed to successfully decarbonize an aviation industry
responsible for around 3 percent of global emissions.
Biofuels around the globe
Boeing is looking at a number of other options, including fuel from
plants grown in the desert using saltwater, and it is optimistic that a
range of bio-kerosenes promising to be both cleaner than standard fuels
and with a greater energy density — essentially offering more power for
less weight, a crucial property for aviation — soon will be certified
for aviation use.
Currently, these fuels are sold for transport by Finland's Neste Oil and
Italian company ENI, but Morgan is convinced of the potential for
aviation — he said the three refineries already open in Italy, Rotterdam
and near Helsinki currently produce around 4 billion liters of bio-kerosene.
"Now on the global scale, that's not very much, but for aviation that's
almost 2 percent of our fuels use with just these initial,
first-of-their-kind renewable fuel plants," he added.
The age of greener aviation may not have taken off just yet, but there
are encouraging signs it is edging towards the runway.
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