Flying To Paris On Biofuels
Just about every major airline, from Air New Zealand to Virgin, has signaled strong interest in aviation biofuels. And no wonder: petroleum-based aviation fuel prices are spiking, airline profits are in a nose-dive and European limits on jet emissions take effect in 2012. Not to mention those image-conscious airline executives who would like to green up the most carbon-intensive form of travel.
SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC – I’m more than half way to Paris on the first transatlantic flight powered by biofuels and the journey has been….utterly unremarkable.
Which is exactly the point.
No modifications to Honeywell’s Gulfstream G-450 were needed before the biofuel made from camelina seed – an inedible plant – by the company’s UOP subsidiary was pumped into one of the six-year-old jet’s Rolls-Royce engines.
“The only difference is that there’s no aviation fuel smell, which the ground crew appreciates,” Ron Weight, Honeywell’s chief pilot, said before take-off Friday evening from a municipal airport near the conglomerate’s headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey.
That and the word “Experimental” emblazoned on the G4’s fuselage. The designation reflects a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration waiver that allows us to make the world’s longest renewable energy-powered flight as Honeywell’s Green Jet Fuel has not yet been approved for commercial use.
Not for long, though: final regulatory approval for this type of biofuel is expected within weeks. That will officially kick off the age of green jet travel, though it will be some years before supply ramps up to make even a dent in the 60 billion-gallon annual global market for petroleum aviation fuel.
“It’s a great way for us to celebrate the approval of the fuel and kind of usher in the next generation,” Jim Rekoske, Honeywell UOP’s vice president for renewable energy and chemicals, said as we cruised at 41,000 feet. “We’re done with the last hurdle of certification and now we’re ready to go at commercial scale and ready to move into commercial use of these fuels.”
Just about every major airline, from Air New Zealand to Virgin, has signaled strong interest in aviation biofuels. And no wonder: petroleum-based aviation fuel prices are spiking, airline profits are in a nose-dive and European limits on jet emissions take effect in 2012. Not to mention those image-conscious airline executives who would like to green up the most carbon-intensive form of travel.As we retrace Charles Lindberg’s 1927 pioneering flight across the Atlantic to Paris, the 50-50 blend of biofuel and petroleum aviation fuel in the right engine is burning 68 percent less carbon than the fossil fuel in the left engine, according to Rekoske.
That’s because the Green Jet Fuel is essentially recycling the carbon that had already been absorbed from the atmosphere by the camelina plants before they were harvested on farmland in Montana. A company called Sustainable Oils crushed and processed the seeds, which Honeywell then refined into jet fuel at a facility in Houston.
By the time the G4 lands at the Paris Air Show, it will have saved a net 5.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
That should alleviate some billionaires’ guilt about the environmental price of flying luxe. (My favorite G4 touch – the electric window shades.)
In fact, the corporate jet market could be a profitable niche for Green Jet Fuel if distribution challenges can be worked out.
As dawn breaks, I pop into the G4’s cockpit to see how the biofuel-powered engine has been performing.
“It appears to be burning a little less fuel than the other engine,” said copilot Rob Odgers. Which, of course, is a good thing.
Other than that, Captain Weight said, “We don’t notice a thing. All the performance is exactly the same.”
When we land in Paris in a couple of hours, we’ll beat by two days aBoeing 747-8 freighter flying from Seattle on a 15% biofuel mix powering all four engines.
But Honeywell wins any way you slice it: the company’s Green Jet Fuel is also powering Boeing’s jumbo jet.
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