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Airlines May Get 1% of Fuel From Biofuels By 2015, Boeing Says
2010-07-22 11:39:39.103 GMT
By Alex Morales
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Commercial airlines may derive 1
percent of their fuel by 2015 from biofuels made of plants
including algae, Boeing Co.'s environment chief said.
Carriers including British Airways Plc and Continental
Airlines Inc. are testing the carbon-cutting alternative fuels
as the global air industry accelerates efforts to slash
greenhouse-gases blamed for global warming.
Boeing has worked with airlines from the U.S. to Japan to
test jet fuels made from plants such as jatropha and camelina.
That's because moving more toward cleaner fuels is in the
industry's best interest, said Billy Glover, managing director
of environmental strategy at Boeing's commercial airplanes unit.
"We need to get to 1 percent to get that foundation and
then the trajectory will be significantly steeper," Glover said
in a telephone interview in London. "We're aiming for a 1
percent penetration around the middle of this decade, and we
think that's quite achievable."
Airlines are striving to reduce emissions that the United
Nations says account for at least 3 percent of the global-
warming gas pollution. The environment group Greenpeace
estimates output of the gases from carriers will double by 2050.
To help curb pollution, the 27-nation European Union will bring
airlines into its carbon cap-and trade system in 2012.
No carriers use biofuels for regularly scheduled flights
though airlines have tested biofuels in flight since 2008. That
was when Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., controlled by the U.K.
billionaire Richard Branson, tested a jumbo jet partly powered
by fuel from babassu nuts and coconut oil.
Since then, airlines including Air New Zealand Ltd.,
Continental and Japan Airlines Corp. have tested biofuels
sourced from various crops in their planes.
Biofuel Production
The key now is to scale up production of the biofuels, said
James Rekoske, vice president and general manager of renewable
energy and chemicals at Honeywell International Inc.'s UOP unit,
which licenses refining technology.
"They're actually not made in major quantities at this
point," Rekoske said in an interview this week at the
Farnborough Air Show south of London. "We have the largest
facility in the world and we've produced biofuels at about
200,000 gallons this year, which is really a very small quantity
compared to what the airlines would need."
Boeing's forecast of 1 percent of fuels coming from
biofuels by the middle of the decade is for the global air
industry, and the company is working with the Sustainable
Aviation Fuel Users Group, an alliance of 19 airlines that aim
to be first-movers, Glover said. UOP's Rekoske said 1 percent is
more likely to be reached at regional levels, with Europe and
the U.S. Northwest as potential candidates.
Plant Construction
Plants are being planned. Washington-based Solena Group
Inc. intends to build a waste-to-biofuels plant in east London.
The $300 million plant will create 1,200 jobs, and British
Airways will buy all of the plant's 16 million gallons of
biofuel annually for up to 10 years, Solena Chief Executive
Officer Robert Do and BA's environment chief Jonathon Counsell
said July 19 in interviews.
Solazyme Inc. could produce hundreds of thousands of
gallons of fuel per year with its existing test technology,
Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Wolfson said in an interview at
Farnborough.
Solazyme, based in San Francisco, aims to build by 2013 a
plant to make 50 million to 120 million gallons at a cost of
more than $100 million. A site has yet to be chosen, he said.
The company at present is focusing on the U.S. military as
a customer for biofuels for aircraft though it's also worked
with Chevron Corp., Wolfson said. Price-wise, the fuels are
nearly competitive with oil, he said.
"We're very close to the economics we need to be,"
Wolfson said. "The target is $60-80 per barrel of oil
equivalent."
Crude oil for September delivery today traded at $77.06 a
barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange
at 10 a.m. London time.
For Related News and Information:
European Product Prices EUPD <GO>
Today's top transport news TRNT <GO>
Climate-change news: NI CLIMATE <GO>
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
--Editors: Randall Hackley, Mike Anderson
To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Morales in London at +44-20-7330-7718 or
amorales2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at +44-20-7330-7862 or landberg@bloomberg.net.
