The Comprehensive Oilgae Report is the most detailed intelligence report for the algae fuel industry. Compiled by a team of researchers over a two year period, it comprises the collective intelligence of over 100 experts, scientists and investors belonging to the algae fuel sector.

The report has been updated in November and now comprises the latest data and insights that will be invaluable for those keen on exploring the algae fuel opportunities. The report also comes with free additional research support from the Oilgae team and access to the subsequent three updates at no additional cost.

To know more about the report and to download a free preview, please see here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/report.html

While a diverse number of product possibilities are currently being attempted by the algae-to-fuel companies, those watching this sector would not have missed the fact that there are a few prominent companies working on making aviation fuel from algae.

I thought I’d dedicate the last newsletter of 2010 to this interesting product segment.

Do let me know your thoughts and feedback on this. And oh yes, a good number of folks have responded to the earlier newsletter on Challenges of Algae-based CO₂ Capture. I promise to compile their responses and put them up as a blog post soon.

And here’s wishing the 11,000 readers of the Oilgae Newsletter a wonderful and prosperous 2011 ahead.

Narasimhan Santhanam
Co-founder and Director
Oilgae - Home of Algae Energy @ www.oilgae.com
Mob: +91-98413-48117
narsi@clixoo.com

What are Aviation Fuels?

The airline industry with its 13,000 commercial airplanes burns about 80 billion gallons of liquid transport fuel annually. Now, that is just about 6% of the total oil consumption worldwide - which is about a humungous 1.3 trillion gallons per year.

Some basics about the aviation fuels are in order.

Aviation Turbine Fuel

The prominent aviation fuel used today is the aviation turbine fuel.

The turbine fuels that are used for civilian aviation are a bit different from those used for military aircraft.

Civilian aviation turbine fuels are used for powering jet and turbo-prop engined aircraft. Outside former communist areas, there are currently two main grades of turbine fuel in use in civil commercial aviation: Jet A-1 and Jet A, both kerosene type fuels. There is another grade of jet fuel, Jet B which is a wide cut kerosene (a blend of gasoline and kerosene) but it is rarely used except in very cold climates.

Military aircraft use fuels such as JP-4, JP-5 or JP-8. JP-4 is the military equivalent of Jet B with the addition of corrosion inhibitor and anti-icing additives. JP-5 is a high flash point kerosene. JP-8 is the military equivalent of Jet A-1 with the addition of corrosion inhibitor and anti-icing additives; it meets the requirements of the U.S. military specification.

Avgas

The other type of fuel that is used in aviation is Avgas (for aviation gasoline). Avgas is a high-octane fuel used typically in aircraft that use reciprocating or wankel engines.

Until now, almost all aviation fuels (for turbines or for reciprocating engines) have been derived from fossil sources. Things have just about begun to change with the aviation industry turning its attention towards biofuels.

Aviation and Biofuels

The aviation industry has been making moves lately to adopt biofuels. In fact, there have been reports that the target is to certify biofuels as safe for aviation use by 2013, and latest updates suggest that certification could be completed by end of 2011.

A related fact is that the aviation industry has been quite keen on biofuels from algae. This might be intriguing to the more inquisitive amongst you. Why should the aviation industry be so keen on algae fuel which currently costs multiple times that of any fuel, especially when fuel is one of the highest cost component of any airline (30-40% operating cost of airlines is from fuel, the other major operating cost chunk is of course labor!)?

There are some good reasons for aviation to love biofuels.

Financial incentives - There are significant financial incentives for successful adoption of aviation biofuels, to judge from a report issued by "sustainability economics" UK consultancy EQ2 Insight. One incentive identified by the report, titled Sustainable Flying (http://www.eq2.eu.com/pdf_resources/Aviation_biofuel.pdf , 2010), arises from savings under the European Union's Emissions Trading System. "Based on the current EU ETS price for carbon in 2012 of €15 ($20) and 2009 average jet fuel price of $1.69/US gal, every gallon of jet fuel burned would incur carbon costs of an additional $0.21, which is a total cost of $1.34 billion across the industry," it calculates. An estimate by the Air Transport Action Group suggests that biofuels' share will be 15% in 2020 and 30% in 2030 respectively in the EU aviation industry, and the savings on carbon expense would be, respectively, $2.01 billion and $5.83 billion.

Drop-in Fuel - Another reason why the aircraft industry is keen on biofuels is that from an aviation standpoint, the right biofuel is an almost direct replacement for kerosene with little modifications required to the engine. In this context, while algal fuels are indeed a favourite, it is a family of fuels called synthetic paraffinic kerosene — which includes those distilled from the oils of Helianthus (sunflowers) and Jatropha – that are closest to becoming certified, according to industry experts.

Latest Updates in Aviation Biofuels

Some prominent recent updates on aviation biofuels are provided below:

• The world’s largest aircraft maker Boeing has been collaborating with leading biofuels makers such as Tecbio of Brazil, Aquaflow Bionomic of New Zealand and other fuel developers around the world. So far, Boeing has tested over five fuels from these companies, and will probably have gone through 20 fuels "by the time we're done evaluating them." Way back in Nov 2008, Boeing said that aviation biofuel was just three years away, so we will keep watching out a year later as to how their pronouncements turned out. However, another Boeing executive at last year's Paris air show, while singling out algae as a "very promising" feedstock, admitted that scale production was eight to 10 years away. So we can kind of say that Boeing is serious about biofuels but not very clear about timelines.
• Jan 2009 - Japan Airlines conducted a biofuel-based flight in January 2009, while in November of the same year, KLM operated a Boeing 747 flight with one engine running on a 50:50 mix of a camelina-based biofuel and traditional Jet-A.
• Nov 2010 - TAM Airlines of Brazil said it had successfully tested aviation biofuel. Brazil's largest airline announced the 45-minute flight of an Airbus A320 using biofuel made from the seeds of the Jatropha curcas tree, where the biofuel was mixed with conventional aviation kerosene. The experimental flight was part of a joint project between TAM, Airbus and engine manufacturer CFM International.
• Nov 2010 - Also in Nov 2010, Qatar Airways announced a Biomass-to-Liquids Project.  The project will be a joint affair between Qatar Airways, Qatar Science & Technology Park, and Qatar Petroleum. Based on feasibility studies on biomass-to-liquid jet fuel done by Seattle's Verno Systems, the trio has established the Qatar Advanced Biofuel Platform.

Hurdles for Aviation Biofuels

While the aviation industry is full of enthusiasm about biofuels, there are bottlenecks along the path.
Even after testing has been undertaken and the aviation industry is fully confident that biofuels  can work and certification is complete,  some hurdles remain:

• Feedstock availability - Availability of biofuel is an important concern. For example, The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Project (SBRP) planned to explore the potential of seawater farming as a means of growing mangrove forests and salicornia, a salt-tolerant plant, as a biofuel feedstock. The shortages of salicornia forced Mexico's Interjet to postpone biofuel demonstration flights that had been scheduled for early 2010.
• Lack of progress in development of suitable strains - There is still work to be done on the genetic development of suitable strains of plant-based, oil-seed-bearing feedstocks such as jatropha and pongomia. "Most work has been done to date using essentially wild strains and it's no surprise that you run into difficulty on yields and therefore economics," says Phil Hopton, a partner in Seattle-based biofuel research company Verno Systems.
• Cost– Cost is always a question mark, and at this point in time, there are few authentic data available in this context.
• Competition for supply with other forms of transport – Mass transport segment (esp road transport) requires over ten times the amount of biofuel that airlines require, and this competition for biofuels between these two segments pose a significant stumbling block.

Aviation Biofuels and Algae

I am not entirely sure if algae is the first feedstock choice that come to airlines’ minds when they look to produce biofuels. Camelina and Jatropha are pretty high on the aviation industry’s biofuels radar. However, there is considerable interest among airlines for algae biofuels as well, for the obvious reasons: high yields, ability to grow in diverse environments etc.

Some prominent companies in the algae fuel industry have been focusing on aviation fuel as part of their product mix. Chief among these is Solazyme, but there are others too.

A study estimated that the total land area equivalents required to produce enough fuel to completely supply the aviation industry are as follows for the following crops:

1. Algae: 68,000 sq km
2. Camelina: 2,000,000 sq km
3. Jatropha: 2,700,000 sq km

I worked out with the above numbers, and at about 12,000 gallons of oil per hectare per year, 68,000 sq km will be able to produce the 80 billion gallons required by the aviation industry every year. 12,000 gallons per ha/year  (about 45 T) is not an unheard of number in the algae fuel industry, though in Oilgae’s opinion, something around 30 T/ hectare is a more achievable target for open pond cultivation.

Some of the happenings in 2009 and 2010 in the aviation industry with regard to algae biofuels:

• Jan 2009 - Two different airlines had algae biofuel test flights this month, and both turned to Sapphire Energy for their needs. Japan Airlines took flight today on a plane partially powered by camelina, jatropha and a small percentage of algae-based biofuels, while Continental Airlines took to the wild biofuel yonder earlier this month, using a blend of jatropha and algae. - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/01/two-different-airlines-funded-sapphire.html
• Oct 2009 - Honeywell Tests Algae Jet Fuel on TPE331 Engines - Honeywell says it has completed initial testing of renewable jet fuel on its TPE331 turboprop engine, its TFE731 engine and a commercial Auxiliary Power Unit, with performance and fuel economy results comparable to typical aviation fuels. For the past several months, Honeywell has been testing a biofuel blend developed by UOP LLC, a Honeywell subsidiary based in Des Plaines, Ill., which is 50 percent jatropha and algae-based biofuel, and 50 percent petroleum-based fuel. More - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/10/honeywell-tests-algae-jet-fuel-on.html
• In Feb 2010, Airbus parent EADS revealed plans to assess the potential of microalgae to fuel over a 12-month period, in partnership with Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR). More - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2010/01/qatar-airways-enters-aviation-biofuel.html
• In Jun 2010, EADS, the parent company of Airbus, and Diamond Aircraft made demonstration flights of the first ever aircraft powered entirely by an algae derived biofuel. The small, twin engine Diamond DA42NG made the flights at the Berlin Air show to showcase the new fuel. (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/airbus-parent-company-showcases-algae-powered-flights/ )
• Solazyme Delivers Algae-Fuel to Navy - Jul 20, 2010 - Solazyme, a San Francisco-based bioproducts company, began delivery of its algae-based jet fuel to the U.S. Navy. The company said it has delivered 1,500 gallons of the algal-derived biofuel as part of the Navy’s efforts to shift its fuel consumption from traditional fossil fuels to more renewable resources. Read our take on the Story Behind Solazyme’s delivery of jet fuel to the US Navy – “The story behind 1500 gallons of Solazyme’s jet fuel to the U.S. Navy” - http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2010/08/the-story-behind-1500-gallons-of-solazymes-jet-fuel-to-the-u-s-navy.html
• Here's a forum discussion from our good old Oilgae forum on algae-fuels for aviation, there are some pretty interesting discussions and links over there – http://www.oilgae.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=162

Summary

From a reading and analysis of the news updates and literature, the following are clear:

1. There is considerable interest in the aviation industry for biofuels
2. Algae is one of the front-runners in terms of the biofuel feedstock, though others such as camelina and jatropha are being considered too.
3. Commercialization of biofuels in aviation however appears to be some years away, as the industry is currently only in the experimentation stage.

References

Oilgae Guide to Wastewater Treatment Using Algae

There have been significant developments worldwide in the past few years in using algae as a bioremediation agent to treat sewage and industrial waste water. This process has been found to be environmentally positive and less costly than using chemical and alternative methods. If you wish to know in detail about the potential, processes and technologies for algae-based waste water treatment, you should read the Oilgae Guide to Algae-based Wastewater Treatment.
More from here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/wastewater_treatment/wastewater_treatment.html 

Get a free Sample Report here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/downloads/Wastewater_Treatment_Using_Algae_Report_Preview.pdf

If you are a researcher, student or academic, this edition will be of great help in your algae fuels research. See a preview here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/report/academic/academic_report.html

The report was updated in June 2010.

Get a free Sample Report here - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/downloads/Oilgae_Academic_Edition_Preview.pdf