March 2009

Two major initiatives are moving forward in the aviation industry in support of the development and use of alternatives to traditional jet fuel. The two major movements are the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group and the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative. While they sound about the same, there are a few important differences in these movements.

A major impetus for the creation of these movements seems to be that in 2006, for the first time in history, the single largest component of U.S. airline operation costs became the fuel component. Industry experts indicate that there are 75,000 scheduled commercial flights per day in the world. While the aviation industry does not account for nearly as much carbon dioxide as motor vehicles (about 1/9), it has a substantial impact, since it affects the upper atmosphere. The release of so much carbon dioxide into the upper layers of the atmosphere creates a large negative environmental impact. So, taking into account rising costs and environmental concerns, the development of cost effective alternative fuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions is at the top the aviation industry's hit list.

Bill Strait and Bob Hackney for Private Jet Magazine

The aviation industry has been one of the first to attempt to embrace the development of an alternative algae-based fuel. While methods such as electricity and hydrogen are being touted as alternative fuel methods for automobiles, the jet engine is best suited to run on something that is closer to its original fuel, which is basically kerosene.
Scientists have known for some years that certain types of algae can produce an oil substance which is similar to crude oil. By now most people realize that crude oil is not the result of dead dinosaurs, but primiarly dead plant life. Up until recently, this was simply a novelty since crude oil was plentiful and cheap, and producing a substitute from algae was prohibitively expensive. It simply made no economic sense to try to develop algae as a fuel source until the price of crude oil started to rise dramatically. While the cost of producing fuel from algae is still more than the cost of jet fuel refined from petroleum, with the combination of economies of scale and rising petroleum costs, the concept is becoming potentially viable. This is similar to the situation with gold. Scientists know that they can extract gold from seawater. The cost of extracting the gold, however, is far in excess of the cost of searching for and mining gold out of the earth.