Jetrader - May/June 2011 - 20

Plant Promise
Aviation biofuels seen as way to reduce emissions, sustain growth
Among those in commercial aviation, there’s no argument about the industry’s value. It’s the only rapid global transportation network, moving more than 2 billion passengers each year, stimulating world trade and tourism, and generally improving the quality of life for those it touches. However, a byproduct is its contribution to man-made CO2 emissions, estimated by intergovernmental agencies to be two percent currently and rising to three percent by mid-century if left unchecked. As a result of pressure to minimize aviation’s environmental impacts and the rising cost of fossil fuels, the industry is embracing plant-based, renewable jet fuel sources as the best near-term ticket to long-term sustainability. “We have a vested interest,” said Mike Hurd, director of environment and aviation strategy at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “We’d like to be able to continue serving a growing global aviation market. The commercial aviation industry has verbally committed to achieve carbon-neutral growth—or a net zero carbon footprint— beyond 2020, which is not very far off. We know we can’t get there with product technology and air trafﬁc management system improvements alone. Biofuels are a key ingredient of our recipe for becoming carbon neutral.” Boeing and others are joining with leading airlines in promoting industry sustainability through the use of renewable fuels. (See Chart 1: Promoting Sustainable Biofuels.) The list includes bio-derived feedstocks that produce oils that can be converted to higher-quality fuels. Included are oilseed crops like jatropha and camelina, along with halophytes, or marsh grasses that grow in saline environments, and algae, perhaps the biggest oil source among plant-based solutions. Armed with this promising selection, the industry is focusing ﬁrst on the conversion of these rapidly growing, non-food plants into a Jet A compatible fuel. The most success to date has come from oilseed biomass created with hydro-processing technology used in today’s petroleum reﬁneries, where hydrogen is used in a catalyst role to convert the biomass into jet fuel. “This has been the source for the biofuel we used in every demonstration ﬂight we’ve done with customers with the exception of the ﬁrst one,” said Boeing’s Hurd. The fuel was processed by UOP, a Honeywell subsidiary and established petroleum provider, who developed the processing technology. In those ﬂight demonstrations, Boeing customers used a 50/50 blend of conventional Jet A and renewable fuel to power one engine of a multi-engined jet during extended ﬂight and a range of normal operating conditions, as well as shutdown and restart. In recent months, biofuel ﬂight tests have included military aircraft entirely powered by the 50/50 blend.

Certiﬁcation and Successes
The successful ﬂight test experiences led to efforts to certify the new fuels as operationally safe with standards boards like ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials). The original fuel speciﬁcation change target was 2015, but it could come as early as this year. Approval of the speciﬁcation change would allow for use of up to a 50/50 mix of Jet A and biofuel in commercial jetliners. “Changing the jet fuel speciﬁcation is a very deliberative process,” Hurd said. “We have a lot of fuel property expertise for our product, so we participate very closely with the engine manufacturers. Our Boeing fuels specialist actually leads the ASTM fuels committee that’s reviewing the test data and assessing what’s considered an addendum to the existing jet fuel speciﬁcation.” Included is the task of developing a standard label for the new fuel. Hurd reports that it started off being called Bio-SPK, or synthetic parafﬁnic kerosene. However, more recently it’s being referred to as HEFA, or hydro-treated esters and fatty acids. “Neither of them rolls off the tongue,” he joked. Once through the ASTM approval process, the door opens for the biofuels supply industry to begin offering the new fuel for customers’ use.

Biofuels Take Flight
Aviation’s journey toward a more sustainable alternative to Jet A began about the time other industries took up exploring the switch to so-called ﬁrst-generation biofuels. These are produced from corn, sugarcane and other biomass that compete with food production and fresh water uses and contribute to deforestation and reduced biodiversity. The early biofuel alternatives were no match for aviation’s harsh operating environment where fuels need to remain liquid at sub-zero temperatures and not demand unusual handling conditions. “We knew from the start that to have something viable, we’d need fuel that would be completely ‘drop in’ and did not require any special handling or extra infrastructure costs. They’d truly be interchangeable and mixable with Jet A and that’s in part why we focused on a new generation of aviation biofuels,” said Hurd. Aviation’s concerns for environmental, economic and social sustainability improvements have led it toward advanced-generation biofuels, which don’t compete for resources or contribute to unintended land use changes or deforestation.

20 The ofﬁcial publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

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