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| An Airbus A321 aircraft using Biojet A-1 Total/Amyris, a biofuel produced from an innovative sugar-processing technology, is parked on the tarmac at Le Bourget airport, near Paris on June 20, 2013 during the 50th International Paris Air Show. |
AFP - An
Airbus airliner flew from southern France to the Paris Air Show on Thursday
with one fuel tank partially filled with farnesane, a biofuel made from sugar
cane as the industry experiments with green technology.
The gambit
was to show that the fast-growing air transport sector is eager for clean
fuels, but the ability for green fuels to compete with petroleum-based kerosene
that spews tonnes of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere remains way
off.
The sugar
fuel was developed by Amyris, a US company owned by the French oil major Total,
and could be on the market starting next year.
Other key
partners in the demonstration were Air France and Safran, which built the
engine used in the test.
"Technically
there are solutions, but economically it has not taken off, that is for
sure," said Pierre Porot, a biofuel specialist at the French institute IFP
Energies Nouvelles.
Parked on
the Le Bourget airport tarmac, the A321 looked quite similar to more
conventional passenger planes and attracted hardly as much attention as the
sleek combat jets sitting nearby.
It was only
the second time a plane has flown with this kind of fuel, the first being in
Brazil, where Total produces farnesane.
The flight,
which lasts about an hour when commercial planes make it, used 10 percent
farnesane, consuming about four tonnes of sugar cane.
But
developers said use of sugar for fuel would not affect food markets, a usual
complaint against biofuel technology..
"Sugar
cane is not considered a food product by the (UN) Food and Agriculture
Organization, it does not compete therefore with food sources," said
Philippe Marchand, head of Total's biofuel unit.
For now
however the main issue is cost.
Experts
contacted by AFP estimated that existing "biokerosenes" cost between
30 and 50 percent more than the normal fuel.
So while
airlines like Lufthansa and KLM have begun to incorporate biofuels in their
operations, and a flight using only biofuel took place in Canada late last
year, no carriers use it in significant quantities.
"Test
flights are easy because they need only a few thousand litres of fuel,"
noted Claire Curry, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
"But
to obtain large quantities you have to build refineries costing $200-300
million and the problem is finding the money," she said.
Total's
Marchand is not deterred however, and once the new fuel has been certified, he
intends to expand production facilities to Europe.
"French
beet farmers are very interested in diversifying their activities because of the
weakness in the ethanol market," he said.
Philippe
Boisseau, head of Total's New Energies division said: "In four to five
years, the goal is to make the fuel with non-edible parts of plants. To
transform cellulose into non-food sugars that are then turned into biojet"
fuels.
Other
possible end products include biodiesel, cosmetics, medicines and even
perfumes.
The cost
issue could reverse meanwhile, because standard kerosene prices and carbon
taxes will likely climb higher, forcing airlines to come up with alternatives.
Major
aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing and Embraer have said they are
mulling joint programmes to develop biokerosene, since their futures also
depend on a sustained source of jet fuels.
Environmental
groups are bringing pressure to the air industry too. On Thursday, the French
activist group Reseau Action Climat denounced the pollution generated by
constantly growing traffic.
"Flying
is the most polluting means of transport. Measured by passenger and by
kilometre travelled, it is three times worse for the climate than cars,"
the group said.
Total hopes
to have its farnesane fuel certified by the end of the year, and possibly have
planes flying with sugar-based fuel in 2014.
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| An ENN laboratory in Hebei province. (Photo/Xinhua) |
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