The Use of Biofuels at the Modern Airport

[Salvo2 0]

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/8675/usda-explores-potential-for-biofuel-crops-at-airports

 

I've heard that the U.S Navy has a single engine Jet Arcraft which uses biofuel, on take-off the whole flight deck smells like McDonald's French Fries

 

Call me a cynic, but until they can develop a Jet engine that can Lift a fully loaded 747, and stay up there when one engine dies. Running on a combonation of Corn Squeezings and Pond Scum. I'll WAIT

[B52STRATO 215]

Not really cynic, only realist. Time to access to this technology is still out of reach and for a long time ... unless specific funds releases (which will probably doesn't please to the oil industries).

[Toryu 156]

Call me a cynic, but until they can develop a Jet engine that can Lift a fully loaded 747, and stay up there when one engine dies. Running on a combonation of Corn Squeezings and Pond Scum. I'll WAIT

 

Done:

 

 

The GE90-115B powers the Boeing 777-300ER and -200F.

With a MTOW of roughly 350t, they both exceed the MTOW of the early B747s.

 

Running on synthethic kerosene is not so much a matter of power-density, but a drawback in emissions.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Toryu

[+whiteknight06604 935]

I see bio engineered grain diseases becoming the WMDs of the future. as soon a a nation becomes dependent of these fuels to any extent terrorists or nations will start to build up stocks of blight inducing agents. ;)

[FastCargo 412]

The USAF has been testing synthetic fuel as well and has had pretty good results.

 

Jet engines have a unique advantage compared to something like an internal combustion engine. Basically, as long as it can be aerosoled, it can be burned in a jet engine. Unlike an internal combustion engine which may need a rebuild to adjust the compression ratio depending on the fuel, a jet engine really only needs to adjust the fuel/air ratio for each type of fuel.

 

In other words, the engines are not what will hinder the use of alternative fuels.

 

FC

[+Typhoid 231]

The USAF has been testing synthetic fuel as well and has had pretty good results.

 

Jet engines have a unique advantage compared to something like an internal combustion engine. Basically, as long as it can be aerosoled, it can be burned in a jet engine. Unlike an internal combustion engine which may need a rebuild to adjust the compression ratio depending on the fuel, a jet engine really only needs to adjust the fuel/air ratio for each type of fuel.

 

In other words, the engines are not what will hinder the use of alternative fuels.

 

FC

 

Concur. The fuels themselves work just fine, so far. What kills the idiotic idea of mass producing sufficient bio-fuels for anything other than a technology demo or politically driven boondogle (i.e., corrupt payoff to the green energy company/campaign contributor) is the ENORMOU$ CO$T of alternative fuel$ compared to conventional fuel.

 

Alternative fuels will never replace conventional fuel. We simply can't convert enough agricultural lands from food production to fuel production without generating mass starvation. There simply isn't enough land to do it.

[JediMaster 451]

Yes, and then you have people who see nothing wrong with the unchecked world population explosion, and in fact want to eliminate all attempts to slow it. Of course, those do often tend to be the same people who think we'll never run out of fossil fuels and that their emissions aren't all that bad, so...

[Salvo2 0]

I don't doubt engines can be made efficently handelling the synthetics, they seem to run fine. But they don't provide any power, the RPM's that a turbine makes, is only half the battle

 

The NAVY Jet is on a catapult, without if could it take off.

 

Airliners would be possible with JATO Paks

 

I wonder what would happen in the event of engine failure, as is known to happen

 

Is it a Death Sentence for her crew ?

[FastCargo 412]

Alternative fuels do work and provide power just fine in jet engines...efficiency and envelope limits are the only issues. If you can burn it in a car, you can burn it in an aircraft. In fact, we already use a less efficient fuel in jets...kerosene. The reason it's used instead of gasoline is weight.

 

The majority of the thrust of a modern airliner engine is not from the hot turbine, but from the spinning fans.

 

Check this out:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel

 

A two-hour test flight using a 50-50 mixture of the new biofuel with Jet A-1 in the number one position Rolls Royce RB-211 engine of 747-400 ZK-NBS, was successfully completed on 30 December 2008. The engine was then removed to be scrutinised and studied to identify any differences between the Jatropha blend and regular Jet A1. No effects to performances were found.

 

Continental Airlines ran the first flight of an algae-fueled jet. The flight from Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport completed a circuit over the Gulf of Mexico. The pilots on board executed a series of tests at 38,000 feet (12,000 m), including a mid-flight engine shutdown. Larry Kellner, chief executive of Continental Airlines, said they had tested a drop-in fuel which meant that no modification to the engine was required. The fuel was praised for having a low flash point and sufficiently low freezing point, issues that have been problematic for other bio-fuels.

 

The 1,500 km journey between Amsterdam and Helsinki was fuelled with a mix of 50 per cent biofuel derived from used cooking oil and 50 per cent conventional jet fuel.[27] Finnair says it will conduct at least three weekly Amsterdam-to-Helsinki flights using the biofuel blend in both of the aircraft's engines. Refueling will be done at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

 

The Navy tested this biofuel blend on the F⁄A-18 Super Hornet aka "Green Hornet". Results from those tests indicated the aircraft performed as expected through its full flight envelope with no degradation of capability.

 

On March 25, 2010, the United States Air Force conducted the first flight of an aircraft with all engines powered by a biofuel blend. The flight, performed on an A-10 at Eglin Air Force Base, used a 50/50 blend of JP-8 and Camelina-based fuel.

 

I could go on.

 

In short, there is nothing technical preventing the widespread adoption of alternative fuel for aviation. It's a matter of infrastructure and energy conversion efficiencies (ratio of energy derived from fuel vs energy and resource needed to make the fuel).

 

FC

[Derk 265]

.... and in lots of cases it is the use of fuel that would otherwise be dumped (cooking oil) or be made out of waste (biomass) that is produced anyway and would normally be burned off in order to get rid of it.

That is something else than using up vast areas of land to grow stuff to produce fuel.

Mixing available quantities with the normal fossile fuels is already a step in the right direction......

Edited April 7, 2012 by Derk

[Salvo2 0]

In short, there is nothing technical preventing the widespread adoption of alternative fuel for aviation. It's a matter of infrastructure and energy conversion efficiencies (ratio of energy derived from fuel vs energy and resource needed to make the fuel).

FC

 

So then you're saying the only reason UPS burns Fossil in it's fleet of Cargo 747's is due to economical feasability at the moment, and the moment it becomes financial feasible due to Political moves to use synthetics they will.

 

If that's our future so be it.

 

I'm just hopeful they produce a Chevy Volt that doesn't burn up first

[Salvo2 0]

Yes, and then you have people who see nothing wrong with the unchecked world population explosion, and in fact want to eliminate all attempts to slow it. Of course, those do often tend to be the same people who think we'll never run out of fossil fuels and that their emissions aren't all that bad, so...

 

I'm not in favor of exploding populations, yet I don't like the methods of population control in China. I've often searched for the logic of replaceing the fossil Fuel dependance with rechargeable batteries, when there's no method used to generate electric power to recharge those batteries, save for nuclear power and we can't have that. I have to laugh at Germany, they outlaw Nuclear Power, only to discover wind turbines and Solar panels just can't suffice. So they'll burn coal ( Carbon Footprint no longer important ) But they need to purchase additional capacity at times. So they buy it from FRANCE who uses Nuclear, which IF it ever leaks Germans will die . . Shrewd

[JediMaster 451]

FC, is it one of those things like using gas with higher ethanol content in cars? You carry the same amount (in gallons) of fuel, but you burn it faster and can't go as far without a refuel? Is that the efficiency you refer to?

I hate ethanol because it didn't make the price of gas any cheaper yet it means I burn it faster.

[FastCargo 412]

JM,

 

That and the energy/resources you have to input into the fuel when you grow and convert it.

 

FC

[Toryu 156]

So then you're saying the only reason UPS burns Fossil in it's fleet of Cargo 747's is due to economical feasability at the moment, and the moment it becomes financial feasible due to Political moves to use synthetics they will.

 

You can't just put your French Fries frying fat-sauce into an aircraft's tank, just because it burns just as fine.

The fuel used now is a compromise between heating-value (basicly the amout of heat-energy it can produce per volumetric unit), flammability, weight and lots more.

Once you're trying to get off fossils, you're gonna run into some trouble:

 

Fossil fuel is nice, because it contains a lot of specific energy (heating-value) at a given volume (weight). You can amout about the same thermodynamic efficiency on synthetic fuels - no issue there.

You'll pay for that by an increased amount of emissions (be it either COx or NOx). In the face of "Green Energy", emissions is what you want to avoid. The current goal of devellopment is basicly cutting the COx-emissions by half, while doubling the amout of traffic over the next 20-30 years. So basicly, the aim is to quarter the amount of COx emissions.

This is simply not achievable by using synthetic fuel due to their larger emission-output.

 

Another issue is the certification-process.

We have achieved a point where gasoline-based air-travel has pretty much matured in economical feasibility (high-density PAX-loads) and safety.

Introducing a new, different type of fuel would require total start from bottom-up.

There are no regulations or certification-standards for (e.g.) Hydrogen-powered aircraft. Why? Because the miltary hasn't gone there yet (NO experience whatsoever) and propably never will!

Civil aviation won't take an adventerous first step there, that's for sure. We're currenly at a point where engine-designs may take as long as twenty years from the first design-efforts to the time of break-even. We've seen an enormous amount of inter-industrial risk-sharing since the late Seventies.

Nobody will scream "Geronimo" and come up with a well-working new off-shelf plan for aircraft-propulsion, that not only maintains today's standards of air-travel, but even passes that.

 

Unless there's a big breakthrough in development of new high-energetic AND safe AND efficient AND low-emission fuels, or we're gonna be stuck in the hydrocarbon-fuel alley for quite some time.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Toryu