Air New Zealand's Biofuel Gamble  

The Dominion Post has an article looking at New Zealand's efforts to exploit various niches related to air transport - in particular their ongoing experiments with creating biofuels for commercial airliners, with algae and jatropha being the focus - "Mega-rich join queue for Air NZ's skills".

Air New Zealand's has ambitious plans to earn big money from niches like cabin design, pilot training and biofuel. ... Air New Zealand has joined with plane-maker Boeing and engine-maker Rolls-Royce in the race to find a viable biofuel to power aircraft and reduce the dependence on oil, which some tip will rise to a crippling US$150 a barrel.

An Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 will make a test flight early next year with one of its four engines powered by a biofuel mixed with standard jet fuel. No passengers will be carried on the flight. Mr Fyfe says he is confident that Air New Zealand will be using a blended biofuel on commercial flights within his tenure as chief executive.

Research into biofuel is moving into the second generation of development of more efficient fuels. One of the most promising is the oil-rich seed of the jatropha tree that grows in warm and moist climates and has an energy density and characteristics close to those of petroleum. India's commercial crop of jatropha seeds is already big enough to power Air New Zealand's domestic fleet, Mr Fyfe says.

Algae-based fuel, like that being pursued by Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation in Blenheim, also shows promise, but more work needs to be done to make it economic. No one company in New Zealand has the resources to take on all the research and development for a new biofuel, Mr Fyfe says.

As biofuel production using corn and sugar is criticised for putting food stocks at risk, could oil from algae solve the energy crisis?

Has a sewage farm just outside the New Zealand city of Blenheim provided a solution to the world’s energy shortages? Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, a local start-up, has patented a process to extract biofuel from sewage, and last year Minister for Energy David Parker road-tested a car run on the oil of microscopic algae.

“Wild algae is one of the ubiquitous units of nature,” says Nick Gerritsen, a partner in the firm. “If you leave a bucket of water outside, the water will turn green as it is settled by wild algae. We realised very early that we needed to create a model that took advantage of wild algae feedstocks.”

The challenge was to catch what he calls “the little blighters”, the algae that contain oils or lipids, in the work’s outflow pipe, a cleansing process known as bio-remediation. In May 2006, the company produced what it claimed was “the first biodiesel crude from wild algae”. The process is secret, though oil was extracted from algae that had been separated from water, which Aquaflow wants to leave clean enough to drink.

Aquaflow first had to pass the energy balance test, creating a fuel that produced at least as much energy as went into creating it. The company went from pond scum to biodiesel in just over a year and says its fuel is suitable for domestic use and transport. Furthermore, it claims its technology fits “on the back of a truck,” and is cheap enough to be adopted anywhere. “Our aim is to enable communities to use their wild algae feedstock and become as self-sufficient as they can,” says Mr. Gerritsen.

Faith in algae to provide energy has spread. Last month, Shell announced it had formed a joint venture with HR Biopetroleum that will construct a demonstration plant to harvest algae they claim can double their mass several times a day, providing 15 times more oil per hectare than alternatives such as rape.

“Algae have great potential as a sustainable feedstock for production of diesel-type fuels, with a very small C02 footprint,” says Graeme Sweeney, Shell’s executive vice-president of future fuels and carbon, but admits the commercial potential of the scheme is yet to be proved.

Meanwhile, the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, an alliance of aircraft manufacturers, industry organisations and entrepreneurs, is seeking a biojet fuel that could come from algae.

Last month (DEC), a San Francisco “algae summit” drew more than 300 delegates. One participant was Kelly Ogilvie, co-founder of Seattle firm Blue Marble Energy, which plans to harvest wild algae from sewage farms, lakes and rivers, mining ponds and algae blooms caused by pollution. It says its method is “low cost” and “low tech.” Unlike corn, soya beans, rapeseed and sugar cane — unsustainable monocultures that threaten food production already jeopardised by climate change — algae thrive in shallow, brackish water. Like all plants, they convert sunlight into energy and voraciously consume CO2.

Algae also emit CO2, but this can be offset by injecting nutrient rich CO2 emissions into algae-rich water. No one knows how much CO2 could be absorbed but Mr. Gerritsen believes it could be “quite significant.” Best of all, he says, algae can double their mass in hours.

And they need less space than other biofuels. While corn produces 60 or so gallons of ethanol an acre annually, algae can provide up to 10,000 gallons of biofuel, says Dave Daggett, research chief at Boeing.

However, getting there is a challenge. “There are hurdles throughout the process stream,” says Eric Jarvis, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The U.S. company, funded by energy company Chevron, has resumed work on identifying strains of algae likely to produce abundant lipid oils.

Shell is going to grow marine algae to convert into biofuel, the oil company announced yesterday.

The decision to build an experimental plant came as another clean-fuel pioneer, D1 Oils, called on environmentalists to end their "generic" condemnation of biofuels and support those pursuing sustainable products not in competition with food.

Shell has formed a joint venture company with HR Biopetroleum under which they will construct a demonstration facility on the Kona coast of Hawaii Island to harvest algae, which grows very rapidly and, they claim, can provide 15 times more oil a hectare than alternatives such as rape.

"Algae have great potential as a sustainable feedstock for production of diesel-type fuels with a very small C02 footprint," said Graeme Sweeney, Shell's executive vice-president of future fuels and carbon, who admitted the commercial potential of the scheme still had to be proved.

Greenpeace described the move as "potentially interesting" but said it did not make up for the kind of carbon-intensive operations Shell is pursuing in Canadian tar sands.

A number of trials with algae undertaken by other organisations have ended in failure, but Sweeney said the political and commercial environment was changing as governments introduced tougher curbs on C02. He denied the scheme was designed to take public attention away from other carbon-heavy schemes such as the Canadian tar sands that have enraged green groups, saying growing global demand for energy meant all types of fuels would be needed in future.