Airlines experiment with algae- and cooking-oil-powered flights
By John D. Sutter, CNN
On Tuesday, algae took a United plane from Houston to Chicago.
And on Wednesday, Alaska Airlines was scheduled to fly from Seattle to Washington D.C. - on cooking oil.
But does this signal, as Alaska Air says, "aviation's next era, where sustainable biofuels can provide a viable alternative to conventional fuel"?
Let's hope so. But maybe not.
First, some less-than-exciting details of these bio-flights:
– The Alaska Air cooking oil - think of it as grease from a McDonald's fryer, Dynamic Fuels told The Guardian - reduced CO2 emissions only by 10%, according to the airline. Meanwhile, that fuel costs six times as much as conventional jet fuel.
– These are only test fights so far - not regular practices. Alaska is running 75 bio-flights, but it's unclear that biofuels will become a large part of the company's energy portfolio. Bill Glover, Boeing's enviro guy, tells NPR that the plane-maker's "near-term target is 1% of all the aviation fuel have some bio-content by 2015."
– Which brings up the next point: These planes aren't running purely on pond scum and fry grease. The biofuels make up about 20 to 50 % of the fuel that's used to fly the planes.
I don't bring up all those negatives to sound like a grouch. It's hard to argue that experimenting with alternative fuels - especially non-food biofuels like algae and cooking oil - is inherently a bad thing for airlines and the environment.
But the supply chains for these fuels don't quite exist yet, making these demonstrations seems like just that – demonstrations.
More on this from NPR:
Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., says real progress is at least 15 years away. "What you've got is somewhere between advanced showmanship and expensive subsidies," he says.
A CNN story from June notes that other airlines - including KLM - also are testing out non-food biofuels. Jim Rekoske, from Honeywell, the tech manufacturing company, told our reporter that what we're seeing now are "early adopters" experimenting with new ideas:
"The adoption rate for biofuels is no different to that of any other technology: You get the 'early adopters,' then those who are cautiously optimistic, who sit back and wait and see how the early adopters get on."And then there are the laggers, who claim it's not going to work - the ones who won't get an iPhone, because there'll be an iPhone 2 along any minute - and they always take a bit longer to convince."
This is a really interesting article; I knew that there are cars that have been made to run on reused cooking oil, but I never thought that airplanes could utilize the same technology. It's a shame that the price of this technology is so high; that bodes ill for it's future when the only slight reduction in CO2 emission is factored in...
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ReplyDeleteThe best recycling comes from re-use, particularly when what is being reused is considered waste to most. While this idea is exciting, would any cost reduction from biodiesel jet fuel be passed on to the consumers?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it might seem counter-intuitive that grease car drivers are still responsible for paying the same fuel tax on the vegetable oil running their cars that most people pay at the pump, which is currently 24.4 cents/gallon everywhere but Pennsylvania (where it is 38.1 cents/gallon).
This tax is justified by saying that wear and tear on the roads is the same regardless of the fuel. At the same time, it is also indicative of government reluctance to embrace a potentially environmentally beneficial alternative to traditional fossil fuels. Would the government be more eager to encourage change in the less consumer oriented market for jet fuel?
Biofuels are great alternatives of energy from the petroleum we are using today. But, to play devil's advocate, at what expense would biofuel cars and airplanes be to consumer? Just like electric cars, there would definitely be an increase in cost of these biofuel cars and plane tickets. What if these high cost for an alternative energy source makes the market drop?
ReplyDeleteI really love this idea. My mom used to work for a company that would collect grease from places like McDonald's and would make it into fuel. I learned a lot about it and thought it was pretty interesting. I'm happy to see that airlines are starting to use this technology. Though the fuel might be more expensive, I personally wouldn't mind paying more for a plane ticket if they were using fuels such as these.
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