Biofuels pass aviation test with flying colors

WASHINGTON — Initial flight tests have found that jet fuel made partly of camelina, algae or other bio-feed stocks can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from airplanes by more than 50 percent, doesn't affect performance and presents no technical or safety problems, a top Boeing official said Thursday.

"It meets all jet-fuel requirements and then some," said Billy Glover, who heads Boeing's environmental-strategy group.

Glover said a full report on the test flights would be released next month and aviation biofuel could be approved as early as next year. Despite its promise, however, Glover said the real problem is how quickly growers can start producing and refiners processing enough biofuel to make it an alternative to the Jet A fuel used today.

Aircraft account for about 3 percent of the nation's carbon-dioxide emissions, the principal greenhouse gas, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Although Boeing doesn't expect much growth in aircraft carbon-dioxide emissions, some have estimated they could triple by 2050.

Boeing, Virgin Atlantic, New Zealand Air, Continental Airlines and Japan Airlines, along with GE Aircraft Engines, have conducted four tests using a mixture of biofuel and regular jet fuel over the past 15 months. The planes involved included wide-body 747s and single-aisle 737s. The biofuels included blends of babassu, sustainably grown coconut oil, jatropha, algae and camelina.

Babassu oil comes from a tree that grows in the Amazon region of South America. Jatropha is a scrub brush that grows on marginal farmlands. Camelina, which provided oil for lamps in the days of the Roman Empire but for centuries was dismissed as little more than a weed, also can be grown on marginal lands, perhaps in rotation with such crops as dry-land wheat.

Of all the crops, camelina, for now, holds the most promise, Glover said.

Molecular biologists at Targeted Growth, a Seattle company, have used genetic engineering to develop a super strain of camelina seeds that are being sown on tens of thousands of acres in Eastern Washington, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota, said Thomas Todaro, the company's chief executive.

He said camelina eventually could be grown on more than 10 million acres in the United States — in eastern Oregon, Texas and Oklahoma, even as far east as North Carolina and Georgia.

"This year, there were three times more requests for our seeds than we were able to provide," Todaro said.

While reluctant to call camelina a wonder plant, Todaro said it could produce 100 to 200 gallons of camelina oil an acre, or about 1 billion gallons a year. The plant also grows well in Australia, Canada and Central Europe. Todaro said the plant wouldn't compete with other crops, such as wheat and corn, because it can be grown on marginal lands or in rotation, and doesn't require irrigation or heavy use of petroleum-based fertilizers.

Although the world's airlines consume about 65 billion gallons of fuel a year, Todaro and Glover said camelina would be a good start.

In addition, Glover said the tests show a camelina blend of aviation fuel reduced carbon-dioxide emissions by more than 80 percent, more than any other bio-feed stock.

"Camelina is very encouraging, but we need a portfolio of things," he said.

While algae may be the most promising biofuel, it's still eight to 10 years away from full-scale production, Todaro and Glover said.

"It could be the great savior, but it's in its early stages," Glover said.

Bionavitas, a Redmond-based company, recently announced a technological advance in which glass rods are used to allow light to travel deep within ponds, generating higher yields of algae for biofuels.

Even bigger obstacles remain. Extracting oil from algae is difficult, and the expense of growing and harvesting enough to serve the market is formidable.

"I'd be very careful in hyping algae," added Todaro, whose company also works with algae.

The test flights lasted a total of less than six hours, but Glover said the biofuels have been tested thoroughly in the laboratory. The Air Force and Boeing competitor Airbus also have been working to develop aviation biofuel.

"As soon as it is approved," Glover said, "we just need to start getting it to the filling stations."

Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.