Shortage of sufficient quantities of suitable biofuels halts Rolls-Royce engine testing programme
| Shortage of sufficient quantities of green jet fuel | |||
Tue 17 Mar 2009 – The biofuel programme initiated by Rolls-Royce and British Airways has been temporarily suspended after failing to find a supplier who could deliver the required 60,000 litres of alternative fuel for intensive ground testing. Rolls-Royce aimed to test up to four alternative fuels on a RB211 engine taken from one of BA’s Boeing 747 aircraft, but only three responses were forthcoming from a worldwide tender issued last July.
The tender made it clear that the second-generation biofuel had not only to meet the required technical specifications but also had to be produced without a detrimental impact on food, land or water. Of the three responses, one supplier said it could meet the sustainability criteria but could not deliver enough to conduct long-term testing, reports Point Carbon News.
Under the tender process, suppliers were invited to supply fuel samples to undergo laboratory testing first, with the successful company being asked to supply up to 60,000 litres for testing that was expected to be completed by the end of this month. Both partners had committed to making the findings public for the benefit of the industry.
Rolls-Royce, which was involved in the Air New Zealand jatropha biofuel flight late last December, had wanted to test the RB211 engine in a controlled indoor test bed environment that would enable more accurate data to be gathered than would be possible on an actual flight because additional instrumentation could be used, and performance and emissions would not be affected by other external factors.
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The intensive trials, which would have taken place at Rolls-Royce’s Derby facility, would have involved the engine being powered by both ordinary kerosene and the alternative fuels, and operated through its full range of power settings, including idle, acceleration, take-off and cruise.
A British Airways source told GreenAir Online that he believed the setback was only temporary and expected at least one supplier to come forward in the near future to fulfil the requirement.
The problem, though, highlights the lack of current pilot projects capable of supplying second-generation sustainable biofuels in the required quantities for long term aero engine testing, due in part to the considerable investment necessary in potentially risky ventures.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set a target for its airline members to use a blend of 10% alternative fuels by 2017. With commercial airlines burning around 70 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2008, which is expected to fall by around 4.5% in 2009, there is likely to be a demand therefore for around 7 billion gallons of alternative fuels within nine years, depending on traffic growth after the current recession has passed and other fuel efficiency gains.
Boeing’s Managing Director of Environmental Strategy, Billy Glover, last week repeated his view that alternative aviation fuels will reach the market in three to five years.
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Posted by Jatropha World Costa Rica at 3/19/2009 5:53 PM 
Categories: Biodiesel,Alternative Energy,climate change,Farming,Investing,jatrofa biodiesel
Tags: Alternative Energy rolls royce Farming Global Warming jatrofa biodiesel british airways Biodiesel green jet fuel climate change
Categories: Biodiesel,Alternative Energy,climate change,Farming,Investing,jatrofa biodiesel
Tags: Alternative Energy rolls royce Farming Global Warming jatrofa biodiesel british airways Biodiesel green jet fuel climate change
This is a big surprise to get only 60,000 liters of the CrudeJatropha Oil to conduct the testing, program.
If it is not possible to acquire this small qunatity while thre are a lot of claims having massive plantation in Latin American countries,Asian countries and African countries.
Either RR and BA are not seriously sources for the feed stock ot all the claims are fake.
It is in big doubt how the Aviation I dustry would be able to move into the biofuel while they could not even get th etsting qunatity for this experiment.
It could be the start of the end having Jatropha a sthe candidtaes for this Jet fuek purpose.
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Note that they were not asking for the crude, but for the fuel. There is a major difference as creating a bio jet fuel that meets specifications is non-trivial. It is costly on a small scale as it requires expensive equipment. Many of the processes used to create jet fuel from bio crude will not result in a fuel that meets specs. Also note that the fuel must be produced without a detrimental impact on food, land or water. The issue is not a lack of the oil, but meeting the stringent requirements. I'm glad to see that they are setting the bar high because in order for bio fuels to succeed, they must be developed in a sustainable way.
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Actually we are the core supplier of the Crude Jatropha Oil To UOP for the experiment in the past one year through The US company TERASOL who was let down by the suppliers in India and Africa.
So far we are able to supply excess qunatity of CJO as much as what they wanted.
As to what we got the information form our startegic partners TERASOL.
The Jatropha Jet Fuel were developed by UOP (Jet Biofuel developer) for the three concerned airlines Continental Airlines + Air New Zealand + Japan Airlines.
The proven technology to process the Synthetic Parafinnic Kerosene from Crude Jatropha Oil is not very much complicated .
UOP is now ready only waiting for the Jet Fuel producer to buy their biorefiery and technology for comercial implemetation.
Processing the Crude Jatropha Oil is also very simple (less complicate than producing the edible vegetable cooking oil).
The announcement from UOP was clearly released to the public for this issue.
The most difficult part is to get the future approval the Biofuel under the RSB (Roundtable Sustaianbility Biofuel)criteria which will concerned the food security/socal impact and environment etc.
This will be hard to comply to produce the Biofuel under the tight criteria which could be considered as the trade barrier as well.
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UOP is trying to sell the Biorefinery having Crude vegetable oil like CJO as the feed stock.
The Bio Jet fuel processing have been successfully developed
It is only a matter of when the Aviation industry will be ready and seriously to spend for the higher cost of Bio Jet fuel.
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Last year I was in association with Energem Plc.(Africa) We were asked to source seed for crushing to make oil. The seed was to be delivered to Dilligent in Tanzania. Energem failed to deliver seed from Malawi and very little was available (at the time) in Tanzania. I think that you are quite correct as regards the claims made by many companies. They simply do not have harvest values because most have only planted out "test" size plots or they have very immature plantations. Only by mid 2010 will we begin to see mature harvest returns. Our trees in Thailand are now becoming mature so there is possibility mid 2009 to actively purchase harvest values. The problem is that who will purchase and proces when it is almost impossible to gather the finances to establish a technology driven operation? I am striving to have this high end process technology in place. On top of this consider that we have 300,000 tones of Jatropha Curcas Linn seeds available in Thailand 2009(obtained from community and import along the economic corridors)and lets suggest that we can obtain a ton for 100 dollars delivered to the process centre. That 30 Million US to purchase the harvest and imports! In 2004/5 promoting the community to grow Jatropha Curcas was the least cost extension opportunity. Many organisations did not view community outgrower activity as the way forward. They wanted vast tracts of land under company management. I can tell you that no investor has purchased or long leased millions of Ha of land in Africa, India, Asia, South America or any other location. Having travelled in all of the mentioned regions I can say that the largest single plantation I have seen would not exceed a few thousand Ha. In the Kilimanjaro Region (and boarder regions) of Tanzania we have 500,000 ha's of "trees" to plant within the communities. Proactive extension work is the only viable methodology available for delivering quality future harvests. Those companies that have ploughed ahead with massive plantation plans are going to discover that operational costs are massive while not one potential end user of the oil for Bio fuel or the bio mass for energy/animal feed or other products is ready to stump up funds. I know of one farmer in Mozambique who is developing 12,000 Ha of land in a very deliberate well managed manner. It is not economically feasible to transport the oil very far from the point of extraction. It needs to be processed to bio fuel and delivered to the end user at the same place it is processed. This is why the Aviation opportunity is viable, not just because the Bio Jet Fuel from Jatropha happens to be very good. So you should conclude that the location of where one promotes the planting of Jatropha is very important. One must be able to embrace a complete value chain from agriculture to industry. the vast majority of JCL activity does not even attempt to do this. Late in 2008 I travelled extensivelly in Indonesia. Bali island is a location that can be considered.
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I am wonder where and how to have 300,000 metric tons of Jatropha seeds to be collected in Thailand and nearby countries.
Basing on the current fact of the relatively very low yield and high inconsistent.The maximum productivity will be und er 0.5 metric tons per hectare.
This will involve over half million hectares of productive plantation in the region.
As far as Thailand is concern.
The biggest single plot of Jatropha plantation I have evr seen is only maximum 50 hectares in Petchaboon province.
Thailand does not have available lsand to plant Jatropha at all.
Considering Thailand as the agriculture lead in the region for many food and eenrgy crops like Rice+Cassava+Cane+Rubber + Corn+Palm etc.
It would be a dream to have more acreages of land to plant jatropha (Half million hectares).
Assumoing there are soem available land (quite impossible).
Jatropha will not be able to compete with any other current crops in term of revenue.
Such low productivity and uns ecured yield.All the people will have more choices for otehr alternative crops (definitely not Jatropha).
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