747s and…Algae???!!!

Posted by admin

July 24, 2007 |

I’d just like to float this out there, but how would you like the next time you take a flight to be fueled by pond scum? Not completely hypothetical, but still. OK, OK, in some news out of New Zealand, it looks like Air New Zealand and Boeing are jointly working on some sort of environmentally-friendly jet fuel, made from…you guessed it: Algae. If it works out, this new biofuel would be made to fuel jetliners from this naturally-occuring organism; also known as pond scum, that green junk, etc. Simply incredible.

What happens is that they extract the fatty lipids from the algae to form the derivative fuel. From there, they can either mix it with conventional fuel, much like an ethanol blend, or (and it seems this is the goal here) to completely eliminate the need for regular JP-jet petroleum. Dave Daggett of Boeing’s Environmental Performance Strategy group told reporters that “34,000 square kilometers of algae could reduce the CO2 emissions for all of aviation to near zero.”

A number of groups have jumped on board the project: Virgin Fuels, connected to the airlines of the same name, has struck up a $2.8 billion dollar deal with Boeing. For what? Presumably to develop this new biofuel and get a 747 running on the stuff as early as 2008. I say presumably because neither Boeing nor Virgin nor another Boeing partner, Air New Zealand (another group testing algae biofuel jets) will say anything alluding to details about the joint nature of the project. So, it’s a secret. Anyways, look on the bright side: that yucky green stuff in your backyard pond will eventually be used to fuel jets. Jet’s you’ll be flying on.

Boeing 747

I don’t mean to scare; in fact, it sounds really nifty to me. I even heard someone say the algae farms Boeing will no doubt hire some company to run will generate tons of oxygen from CO2, lowering atmospheric levels further. Lastly, how expensive is it to refine algae fuel? It can’t be as much as the cost of refining enough jet petroleum to operate an entire fleet of airliners. That *should* eventually translate into lower flight costs! Yes!

And that, my friends, despite it’s yucky nature, is something to be thankful of pond scum for.

Pictures courtesy of: Boeing, Wikipedia;

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