Fuelling Tomorrow

In light of recent statements that peak oil was potentially reached almost six years ago, we examine aviation’s recent progress toward the development of alternative fuels.

In its 2010 World Energy Outlook report, the International Energy Agency said peak oil — the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached — had likely already occurred in 2006. Although it went on to say that other sources would make up for the now declining part of conventional crude oil production, this statement was an eye-opening reversal from the agency’s long-held view that the concept of peak oil even existed.

So, with more than half the world’s known oil deposits having been consumed and conventional production now expected to be in decline, how will the world address the continued rise in global demand for fossil fuels? And, what will this mean for aviation and its continued growth?

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said aviation is growing worldwide at nine per cent annually. Equally important, it said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation sources account for about 3.5 per cent of emissions in developed nations, and worldwide the total amount of carbon-dioxide, or CO2, emissions is expected to grow at three or four per cent per year. While the aviation industry has long worked toward improved fuel efficiency, in June 2009 International Air Transport Association (IATA) member airlines also committed to reducing their CO2 emissions by half by mid-century relative to 2005 levels. And, IATA said it wants to be using 10 per cent alternative fuels by 2017.

In a bid to reduce the United States military’s overall reliance on oil, in July 2006 the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) solicited proposals “to develop a process that efficiently produces a surrogate for petroleum-based military jet fuel (JP-8) from oil-rich crops produced by either agriculture or aquaculture (including, but not limited to, plants, algae, fungi and bacteria) and which ultimately can be an affordable alternative to petroleum-derived JP-8.” 

While DARPA had investigated alternate fuels for military applications prior to 2006, it found commercial processes yielded unsuitable products. It also concluded that secondary processing of biodiesel, a major type of alternate fuel, was “inefficient and [resulted] in biofuel JP-8 being prohibitively expensive.”

Two months after the DARPA request for proposals, Richard Branson announced that his Virgin Group would spend $3 billion US over a decade to help develop alternatives to fossil fuels and to tackle climate change initiatives. At the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2006, the British billionaire said: “We must rapidly wean ourselves off our dependence on coal and fossil fuels.” Appropriately, Branson created Virgin Fuels (now known as the Virgin Green Fund), which then devised criteria for spending an initial $400 million US for the development of renewable energy technologies.

The Virgin Group’s aviation holdings include 49 per cent of Air Nigeria (formerly Virgin Nigeria Airways), Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin America and Virgin Australia Airlines (which now includes Pacific Blue Airlines and V Australia).

Some of the proposals chosen by DARPA from its solicitation are reflected in the types of bio-jet fuels that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) subsequently began testing.

For instance, on Sept. 16, 2006, a USAF Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California and flew with two of its eight jet engines running on “a 50-50 blend of traditional crude-oil-based fuel and a Fischer-Tropsch fuel derived from natural gas,” said a USAF press release. Three months later, a B-52 flew with all eight engines burning a blend of synthetic fuel and JP-8. “The B-52 test flights . . . are the initial steps in the Air Force process to test and certify a synthetic blend of fuel for its aviation fleet,” said then Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne.

USAF’s multi-year pursuit of suitable biofuels culminated in the August 2010 test of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlifter, which took to the skies powered by a blend of JP-8 (50 per cent), biofuel derived from animal fat (25 per cent), and synthetic fuel processed from coal (25 per cent) using the Fischer-Tropsch method. “The hydro-treated renewable jet [HRJ] fuel used by the C-17 contains biomass that can be made from either animal fats or plant extracts such as camelina,” wrote a USAF spokesperson at the time. “The Air Force fuels certification office . . . has certified more than 85 per cent of all Air Force aircraft to use Fischer- Tropsch derived fuels, and is now focusing efforts on certifying aircraft to fly on HRJ biofuel blends.”

Back on the commercial side, February 2008 saw Virgin’s alternative fuels push result in a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 flying from London, U.K., to Amsterdam, Netherlands, partly using a fuel derived from a blend of coconuts and Brazilian babassu nuts.

Ten months later, other airlines started their own flight-testing. In December 2008, one engine of an Air New Zealand B747 was powered by a 50-50 mixture of jatropha plant oil and normal jet fuel. In January 2009, Continental Airlines flew a B737 with one of its engines using a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and a biofuel mix of algae and jatropha. Later that month, Japan Airlines conducted a one-hour B747 flight test using a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and bio fuel composed of camelina (84 per cent), jatropha (15 per cent) and algae (one per cent) to power its No. 3 engine.

KLM — which flew the first biofuel passenger flight in November 2009 — marked another first on June 29 of this year when it operated the first of hundreds of scheduled passenger flights between Amsterdam and Paris, France, using a blend of biokerosene derived from cooking oil and normal jet fuel. The Dutch airline said its CO2 emissions on these flights should be reduced by 50 per cent.

Closer to home, Targeted Growth Canada (TGC) and Toronto, Ont., based Porter Airlines said they are working toward a test flight in early 2012, during which one of Porter’s Bombardier Q400 turboprops will fly using camelina-based biofuel. Bombardier Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Sustainable Oils, Honeywell’s UOP, and the Canadian government’s Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) foundation and Green Aviation Research & Development Network centre of excellence are project participants.

“There’s no doubt that biotechnology will play a key role in developing long-term, sustainable and low-carbon fuel sources,” said Tom Todaro, TGC’s president, in a press release. “But we can’t do it alone. The close collaboration with the other key players in the value chain . . . will help us accelerate the commercial availability and use of next-generation biofuels.” 

A more formal collaborative effort that arose in October 2006 saw the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and organizations representing airlines, and aircraft and engine manufacturers; energy producers; researchers; and international participants and other U.S. government agencies, kick off the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI). CAAFI’s goal is to “promote the development of alternative jet fuel options that offer equivalent levels of safety and compare favourably on cost with petroleum-based jet fuel, while also offering environmental improvement and security of energy supply for aviation.”

Functionally, as CAAFI’s website explains, the majority of its functions are supported by coalition members, and “Representatives from more than a dozen federal agencies, as well as Canada, Mexico and the European Union . . . take on significant responsibilities.” CAAFI’s environmental team, for instance, has included experts from the FAA; the Massachusetts-Institute-of-Technologyled, FAA-sponsored PARTNER centre of excellence; USAF;

Argonne National Laboratory; UOP; Boeing; General Electric; and Rentech. And, co-sponsors of PARTNER (the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction) include NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Transport Canada.

On the Canadian development front, in May 2011 Rentech Inc. (the Los Angeles, Calif., clean energy solutions company that produces RenJet, a synthetic fuel suitable for military and commercial aircraft) announced it had been selected by the Ontario government to build the Olympiad Renewable Energy Centre (OREC), in White River, some 190 miles (300 kilometres) north of Sault Ste. Marie and just north of Lake Superior. The facility will employ the company’s Rentech-ClearFuels biomass gasification system and its Rentech Process (a Fischer-Tropsch derivative) to “produce 23 million [US] gallons [85 million litres] of renewable, low-carbon RenJet fuel and 13 million [US] gallons of renewable naphtha per year. The fuel and naphtha will be produced from 1.3 million tons per year of Crown timber allotted to Rentech by the Province of Ontario.”

The OREC project will reportedly create more than 300 indirect jobs and the production facility, which is expected to be operational in 2015, will employ 83 people full-time. Rentech has formed a partnership with the local Pic River First Nation for up to an 18 per cent equity interest in the project. And, SDTC will be loaning Rentech up to $200 million Cdn from its NextGen Biofuels Fund, to be repaid from OREC revenues.

As for home-grown solutions, the federal government’s Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) department announced on Sept. 22 that it was spending over $150,000 Cdn for a feasibility study related to producing renewable, bio-based jet fuel from two types of industrial oilseed crops: Camelina sativa and Brassica carinata. Saskatoon, Sask., based Ag-West Bio Inc. will be leading the study.

“With the aviation industry committed to developing sustainable biofuels, there appears to be huge potential in this area, both for producers, and for the province as a whole in downstream processing,” said Mike Cey, Ag-West Bio’s vice-president of corporate and business development, in AAFC’s press release. “This study will allow us to make informed decisions in order to map out the best path forward in further developing this exciting opportunity in Saskatchewan.”

In an email to Canadian Skies, Cey said there are as many as 7.6 million acres (3.1 million hectares) of relatively arid land in Saskatchewan and “It is hoped that camelina and/or carinata, being more suitable for the drier production region, would actually give producers an economic oilseed crop option within their rotation, where today they may otherwise leave the land fallow and grow no crop at all.” He added, “Camelina and carinata are under study because they largely avoid the food-versus-fuel debate, given where they would be expected to be produced and the makeup of the oil profile itself.” The study will be finished by mid-2012.