Boeing will seek approval by the end of this year to clear a green diesel blend as an alternative to Jet-A for turbine-powered aircraft.
If approved, Boeing believes this emerging source of renewable fuel can kick-start the aviation industry’s goal to find Jet-A alternatives with fewer harmful emissions much faster than previously believed. Green diesel is so attractive because it is already produced in volume, shares similar chemical characteristics with kerosene and produces fewer harmful emissions.
Paraphrasing the late, lunar astronaut Neil Armstrong, Boeing’s manager director for environmental strategy and integration Julie Felgar acknowledged that approving green diesel for aviation may seem only a small step.
“But,” she adds, “it’s a huge, giant leap towards the commercialisation of aviation biofuels.”
The challenge of converting airlines to fuels has always been the high cost and the limitations of distribution, especially in the early transition period before the new energy source can reach the critical mass of an established fuel like Jet-A. In the circular dilemma of alternative energy sources, lowering costs often requires scaling up production, but scaling up production usually requiring first lowering costs.
In green diesel, Boeing believes airlines particularly in the USA can begin using the fuel at affordable rates as soon as the fuel is approved by regulators.
“Price [of green diesel] is at parity with Jet-A,” Felgar says.
The fuel’s affordability is based on two factors. Global production capacity of green diesel is forecasted to reach 800 million gallons per year by the end of 2014, she says. Second, the US government offers incentives to companies that use renewable fuels. The combination of production capacity and incentives lowers the price of green diesel to where it becomes competitive with Jet-A.
For years, the energy and aviation industries had considered more refined versions of green diesel as a jet fuel, she says. However, James Kinder, a Boeing technical fellow, determined that the same green diesel mixture that is today used in trucks has the same chemical properties as jet fuel.
The ability to use the same fuel source in both trucks and aircraft may offer more advantages to certain operators, such as the military and cargo companies like FedEx and UPS, she says.
“Anything that can be used for ground transportation as well as the airplanes would be an economic win,” Felgar says.
Green diesel is derived from a feedstock of oils and biomass that do not compete with the food supply.
Boeing is now seeking approval for green diesel through the consensus-driven ASTM process, which has an existing standard for renewable fuels derived from hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA).
If green diesel complies with the standard, the approval could be through adding a new annex to the HEFA standard or amending the current standard to accept green diesel, she says.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
