Aviation Green Energy

Hello and welcome to www.christian-john.com and another video. The video I posted on the green energy transition I mentioned the aviation industry and its green transition re use of biofuels and due to popular demand I will elaborate on.

Firstly let me state that i am a fan of aviation and I have flown at least 200 times in my life time and have been at times extensively involved in the industry from the supply chain to the fuels chemistry specialist at Airbus looking into exactly this. I am and always will be a fan of aviation, will want it to progress, to evolve, and believe that flying should be if wanted a regular part of everyones life to get around the planet be that work or pleasure.

But, that does not mean that again I agree with what I sees as its direction into biofuels and here again as with my video on the green economy I am more than happy to be challenged and proved wrong, Please, I implore you to try and do just that.

There are I believe two main issues with biofuels. Firstly in when you look at the process as a cradle to grave analysis they could actually end up burning more carbon than fossil fuels which bear in mind their only existence is to do the opposite then there really is something wrong. Secondly they have what I consider quite serious quality issues that the aviation industry could find out to its cost if biofuels do expand into regular use.

Now, firstly in regard to a biofuel they are produced from a crop whatever that is be that sugar, wheat or whatever feedstock has been selected for that particular process. Right there, at that moment in terms of the growth of that crop and subsequent photosynthesis is the only reduction in carbon that the whole biofuel system and equation experiences. Everything else involves carbon emissions with energy usage up to the fuelling of the plane of which I will also explain.

But right there already there is what can be called the first issue. The reason being is that it is not as if the aviation industry has removed a concrete carpark to grow the crops. The fact is they are using crops that would have been grown anyhow wether they were used for the biofuel, food or another crop or even if the land was even just left baron it would still have undergone photosynthesis so the aviation fuel in its use of the crops is not in all reality decreasing carbon emission as they would have happened regardless. It is the equivalent of all farmers being able to gain carbon credits for their fields and trees, for everyone with a garden to also claim carbon credits for their gardens and so forth. Everyone with a jungle or forest etc.

But from the crop it needs to be harvested and that heavy weight transported either road, rail or ship dependent upon inter-country or cross-continental that all burns carbon. Then it arrives at a refinery where the refinery itself has been specifically built to process the crops into biofuel, a 4-5 stage process involving again more energy requirement, to end up with a biofuel that also will have lost yield at every step to then find its way onto an airport and into a planes fuel tank. But here, again, even taking all of that into account, the fuel is still a carbon based fuel, the chemistry simpler than typical fossil based aviation fuel, not to get complicated but mostly alkane based chemistry but still a carbon based fuel that will still give off similar carbon emissions at the airport as would typical aviation fuel.

That if you like is the cradle to grave analysis of a biofuel when you really look at it.

Secondly is the issue with quality and the approval system. Bear in mind you are making aviation fuel out of crops, crops are not made for aviation fuel, you are totally swimming against the logical and scientific tide here in fundamentals if not evolutionary rules. To explain what I mean by quality issues here I will use fossil based aviation fuel as an example. You can process aviation fuel in a refinery that is crystal clear with virtually zero sulphur and top quality fuel. You can also process it as an almost yellow colour, around 30 times the sulphur levels as your car is allowed, and it can be very close in specification to diesel as their grades cross over. Still both sample's are passed grade aviation fuel it just depends on how much and how long you want process the fuel and how much money and time you want to spend. Obviously the clear and bright and low sulphur is a lot more expensive than the other fuel but they both fetch the same price so there is no point. But, if a customer stated they would pay a premium for good quality aviation fuel, then the refinery could pass a sample of the high quality fuel for the customer to look at. He maybe satisfied with it but the chances are when full production takes place he will get whatever quality fuel the refinery makes and the chances are will never be as good or as high as the sample was,

If you want to sell a synthetic aviation fuel to the industry you need to contact ASTM J committee who will tell you they need to test the fuel as part of D7566 to which they will ask for maybe 10,000L or greater. There are maybe 40 different tests for the approval against maybe 15 that are tested on a regular basis at an airport for instance. Let’s say the manufacturer is Acme biofuels, if they are going to provide that volume for testing they will ensure in every which way that they provide the best possible quality for the sample. As in the example with the fossil aviation fuel they will use the best feedstock, process it to the hilt, maybe even fractionate it but you can be sure that when they produce that fuel for testing it will be the best possible fuel they can produce at significant cost. You can guarantee that if and when the fuel gets approved and the orders start to flow in, a feul that costs two, three four times that of aviation fuel that every step will be made to then minimise those costs and the process being one of them. The feedstock might not be as good quality, the processing not as robust, no fractionation and whatever else could reduce what will be an extremely costly fuel to produce. This begs the serious question as in will the fuel be the same that comes into the typical production for orders as the fuel went for original testing and I wld guess the answer is no but how close to no is the key and no one can determine that until the fuel starts any serious volume production. That is if you like the serious flaws with the whole testing process within D7566.

I know that people in the industry may be shouting at me here and stating that the fuel will always have to pass its testing specification as in its ASTM testing requirement being around 15 tests prior to its use at the point of use. Yes I agree but that is what I call the rose-tinted version of the industry. The reality of the industry is such that if aviation fuel is made for aviation fuel, regardless, it will end up in that plane. You can be sure that if the huge cost of producing a biofuel being three to to four times as much as fossil with all the hype and PA surrounding it, that regardless of the testing results that biofuel will end up in the aircraft. It will be retested and resampled until it passes which is the not much stated but reality of the industry. Which means you have to make sure you produce it right in the first place.

So bear all the above mind, for governments to spend billion on providing subsidies and tax relief to airlines and users of those biofuels, for passengers to also bear the cost of high hikes in fares, all that extra cost with exactly what being achieved when you look at the above? They could never achieve anything higher than a single percentage difference in volume at the very best and even achieving that would be incredibly expensive and possibly not even possible. But the issue being that this is a rollercoaster that the industry as a whole has jumped on and the question being can they get off even if they wanted? Who knows how much investment has already been spent on refineries and the like that has already dictated the next chapter or the next decade.

So what is the answer to the industry? What if I make a few suggestions here that I believe are a reality. Firstly, it is aviation, they fly people 30,000ft in the air and as such they should have a caveat in terms of given more time than other industries to work out their policy to the whole green transition as they rightly should get that. They should also have the option to put their biofuel as in bioethanol or others into the car and ground fuel industry and themselves claim the carbon credit for that. Increasing the ethanol content in gasoline provides increase in octane rating and less fumes so why not? That would give the aviation industry another 5-10yrs at least. Let the diesel and gasoline cars hit 20, 30% biofuel levels with aviation claiming that carbon off-set to the percentage they are putting in. That is a very sensible outcome.

The aviation industry is going to need more and more fuel like pretty much every other industry due to growth. During this the car industry as in gasoline and diesel will only decrease leaving the oil industry with an issue as in needing more aviation fuel but less diesel and gasoline. It has the option to either modify its process to produce more aviation fuel or to actually increase the specification range for aviation fuel itself allowing it to take a larger fraction of the gasoline and diesel part of a barrel of oil.

Ultimately I feel that the industry will go from its current carbon foot print to zero at some point way into the future be that hydrogen, be that any other high density based energy but the reality is that the aviation industry will be dependent upon fossil based aviation for a long tie to come yet and even with huge input from the biofuel industry for all of its flaws, it will barely register in volume or have any significance.

The oil industry should also stop burning fuel oil at sea where no one can see it at 3% sulphur and being the black think tar that is used for roads that causes huge pollution out at sea yet no one talks about that and I believe the shipping industry has been given one of the longest deadlines for carbon reduction because the industry simply does not know what else to do with it. It is simple, stop burning black fuel oil at sea and use it for roads that you can then claim is carbon capture and storage as you are not burning it but storing it in the ground as roads. While I am on the subject when the biggest cruise ship in history was built with LNG as its fuel it was demonised in the press on every channel and paper stating it was a move backwards for the industry and that LNG as in methane is around 50 times worse for global warming than CO2. What a ridiculous statement, firstly, methane does not go into the atmosphere carbon dioxide does, if methane starts to make its way into the atmosphere it is gas it explodes, so it does not. Secondly, gas burns so clean as in why you cook in your kitchen with it, compare that to gasoline, diesel and black thick fuel oil and using LNG is a huge step forward for the industry in its energy evolution. It also allows the eventual potential movement into hydrogen in fact you could describe LNG as hydrogen but with carbon dioxide as a by-product.

Again, I am happy to have any and all of the above proved wrong, anyone who feels they have information that contradicts the stated more than happy to receive it.

But, as usual, am expecting nothing from anyone whatsoever, just silence.

Thank you for listening to another video by www.christian-john.com