Airbus A380 Completes Flight Powered By Cooking Oil:
Fossil fuels are making news for all the wrong reasons of late. Whether it's their contribution to global climate change or the fact that the price and supply hinges on violent geopolitics, there are more reasons than ever to shift to cleaner energy sources.
In the world of aviation, that means finding a cleaner source of fuel. A test earlier this year took place in pursuit of that very goal, where an Airbus A380 airliner was flown solely on fuel derived from cooking oil.
[...] The fuel supplied for the test came from French company TotalEnergies. The specific type of SAF fuel used is known as HEFA-SPK, or Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids – Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene. It's made by chemical treatment of waste cooking oils and fats, which processes it into a usable substitute for kerosene-type jet fuels.
They're not the only company working in this space, either. Where Airbus elected to run just one engine on SAF, others are going further. Swedish SAF supplier Neste recently completed a test in partnership with ATR and Braathens Regional Airlines. The successful test ran both engines of a ATR 72-600 small regional airliner on SAF. It builds on several prior tests on single engines, and the companies hope to get certified for 100% SAF use by 2025.
There needs to be more sustainable fuel options, but do you think the economics of this could ever work out, or is this just some startup company PR and perhaps a bit of Airbus greenwashing thrown in?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Sunday July 17 2022, @01:46PM (4 children)
Beyond the pure logistical nightmare trying to collect and process waste cooking oil at scale, there just isn't enough of it.
https://simpleflying.com/jet-aircraft-fuel-consumption/ [simpleflying.com]
There's no way you can get 14,000 gallons of used cooking oil per day, per flight. That's almost 800,000 gallons a day for just that one route. There aren't enough deep fryers anywhere on the planet to sustain that rate of fuel consumption.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Sunday July 17 2022, @08:57PM
Well done dear Sir! I came here just to post that. A few flights before they run out of supply and need to use fresh oil then we are back to square one I guess.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jb on Monday July 18 2022, @04:34AM
Simple solution: serve only freshly deep-fried food for all in-flight meals, then pipe the waste oil directly into the fuel tanks. Increase frequency of meal service until fuel requirements are met. Surely that would make everybody (especially the passengers) happy? And the cabin would smell so much nicer...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aim on Monday July 18 2022, @01:54PM
That was my first reaction too, just how much cooking oil is available for recycling?
There are projects though to capture CO2 from the air and turn it into hydrocarbon chains, using renewable energy sources (e.g. geothermal in Iceland). If this can be made to scale, it would allow for synthetic fuels while reducing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere - win-win! Of course, some (large?) part of that carbon should be sequestered for good, so it won't go back into the atmosphere.
That sure would beat turning crops into fuel, especially in times when there's a lack of food for animals and humans alike.
To really reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration, we as humanity should of course stop using any kind of fossil fuels in the first place, thereby stopping the increase.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @03:41PM
This is America and we are number one though. If there's any challenge that can Unite the American people behind a unifying message it's eating more fried foods!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Opportunist on Sunday July 17 2022, @01:54PM (2 children)
I've smelled cars running on cooking oil. It's like driving through a McDonalds restaurant. That smell of old fries oil lingers forever.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday July 18 2022, @07:59AM (1 child)
Mine smells a bit like bacon, but then it's pig, chicken, and beef fat from rendering plants. A local gas station in my area is selling clearly off-label "biodiesel99". I believe it to be a Neste product, as I understand some California stations are test marketing this stuff. And I like the stuff; I drive over to the next city to get it.
I have one of those old mechanical diesels that seem to run on any liquid that will burn, except gasoline. Some run theirs on waste motor oil, but that smokes too much for me. Just don't wanna make a mess in the air. People have to breathe that stuff. If it won't burn clean, I won't use it.
I believe in liquid fuels, and will support companies working on ways of manufacturing these fuels sans petroleum feedstock. Very few things are more efficient at molecular manipulation than the chemistries of life. The economies of scale will kick in once we know how to make this stuff in high quantity.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @03:43PM
Probably because liquid gasoline doesn't burn! (only the vapors do)
(Score: 0, Informative) by Tokolosh on Sunday July 17 2022, @02:53PM (19 children)
Religion is believing in something for which there is no evidence. Large swaths of environmentalism are properly understood as a religion, by this definition. There are many examples of green dogma that have no scientific or economic foundation. Here are a few:
1. Mandating ethanol in gasoline. In this case there is actually hard evidence that it is bad for the environment.
2. Oils and fats for diesel and kerosene. No evidence that it is beneficial to use food as fuel. Besides, you still need methanol, or equivalent.
3. Recycling everything, everywhere, always is better than putting waste in a properly designed and managed landfill. Some recycling may be justified (aluminium), but most is a net loss for the environment.
4. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the one and only way that global warming will be stopped. (Global warming itself is well-proven)
5. "Organic" farming and food is good for you and the environment. Studies show organic food is no healthier, and go to Sri Lanka to see the environmental and economic benefits.
The separation of church and state should be enforced. The high priests of environmentalism should have no say in policy-making.
Back to the subject at hand. If bio-kerosene can compete on a level playing field, sure.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:02PM
I just pray a lot. I figure Jesus has my back. Plus doing nothing is way easier.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @04:00PM (4 children)
> There are many examples of green dogma that have no scientific or economic foundation. Here are a few:
>...
> 5. "Organic" farming and food is good for you and the environment.
I'll call you on this one. I'm quite happy to eat less pesticides and other ag chemicals. It seems like nearly every time someone really looks into the health and/or environmental effects of these substances they always find problems. And they may also find a big company covering up negatives of their products. Maybe not as severe as outed by Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring", but problematic for human well being.
Additionally, I often find that food grown carefully "the old fashioned way" (say, pre-1940?) just tastes better.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday July 17 2022, @05:03PM
I thought there was an article here, or maybe green site, about glyphosate in USAians' urine. I can't find the posting, but here's one: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glyphosate-roundup-urine-samples-bayer-monsanto-weed-killing-chemical/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Sunday July 17 2022, @06:29PM (2 children)
I do not maintain that all pesticides are harmless to humans. Some may indeed have unwanted health effects. On the other hand, if we did not have these chemicals, crop yields would be far lower, to the point where starvation is probable. So the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Once again, see Sri Lanka today. If you disagree, show me the science.
As for taste, show me the science. However, I agree that modern hybrids, which have been developed for productivity, have possibly lost some of their taste in the process. As for nutrition, I have no idea. Show me the science, instead of anecdotes and opinions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @02:52AM (1 child)
> As for taste, show me the science.
Now you are just being ridiculous. Taste is subjective, there's no science worth doing. Blind trials with wine tasters usually come up with random results, the experts don't rank the same samples in anything like the same order. I like what I like and you do likewise.
My SO says that anything with cilantro in it tastes like dirt, I feel the same about red beets. We still get along just fine, I don't eat her beets and she has her own salsa without the dreaded cilantro.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrchew1982 on Monday July 18 2022, @10:47AM
Best option for organics is to grow it in your own garden at home. There have been numerous cover-ups of organic food being mislabeled to get that price premium.
Heck, any veggie is better from your own garden. I've known people in high-rises that grow tomatoes on their balcony.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @05:05PM (12 children)
I would disagree that anyone of significance argues this. It is, however, a lot more effective to address it at the production side rather than trying to figure out how to deal with it after the greenhouse gases have been produced/released. It is such a large and complicated problem that it is recognized that it needs to be addressed at all levels, but getting it at the source is the low hanging fruit in the same way that the most effective way that the rivers and streams were cleaned up in the 70s was to stop the direct dumping of effluent and waste into them.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Tokolosh on Sunday July 17 2022, @06:32PM (11 children)
Name one person of significance that does not argue that reducing emissions is the one and only way. You yourself argue it, without evidence that it is better than any alternatives. You cannot even name an alternative. So you are religious.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @09:09PM (1 child)
I perhaps do not understand what your point is for #4 then (being of only a simple religious mind myself, it seems). Are you saying the 2 degree rise in global temperatures can be avoided without reducing current greenhouse gas emissions? If so, you'll have to "show me the science" and not make unsubstantiated (dare I say?) religious claims.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Monday July 18 2022, @01:57PM
https://interestingengineering.com/mit-space-bubble-shield-cool-earth [interestingengineering.com]
One example.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 18 2022, @06:45AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @08:28AM
I'll beg to nitpick over reducing emissions to be the only way. Some emissions just feed back into the great circle of life. However ,I will say that many of our engineered pollutants have no metabolic pathways for reuptake and breakdown, and by their very nature of obstruction of metabolic processes, pose a threat.
I do not think we are going to have much of an impact on carbon dioxide emissions by regulation, but we can do our best to help nature capture CO2 by husbanding plant life in any which way we can.
You have an interesting post and stirring up good responses. I do not agree you are flamebait and will use what I have to fix that. I agree we need to be aware what we are doing has consequences, and need to act accordingly.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @03:46PM (3 children)
Uhhh....the entirety of the carbon capture and storage industry?
40 millions tons per year and growing. [iea.org]
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Monday July 18 2022, @09:11PM (2 children)
Carbon capture is merely reducing emissions after they have been emitted. It is the stupid way, but in the end it is still the same.
Try again.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @09:55PM (1 child)
Ah sweet, we've got an infrared frequency absorption denialist on our hand here folks!
Ah memories..... that one's out of fashion even among the Q worshippers but hey, gotta love the nostalgia!
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Tuesday July 19 2022, @02:39AM
I am more worried about the reality of climate change than you. I you were really worried you would be looking for solutions beyond merely reducing emissions. But no, mention climate change and all you hear about is emissions. We are not going to solve climate change if we cannot get out of that run. Knee-jerk labeling me a denier is just another symptom. In 20 years you will be ruing the time wasted.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @03:48PM (2 children)
How about you name one person of significance who says it's the ONLY solution and not just he easiest one?
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Monday July 18 2022, @09:14PM (1 child)
DeathMonkey. Anonymous Coward for the bonus point.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @09:47PM
DeathMonkey, you mean the guy who literally just posted you a link to the carbon capture and storage industry?
No, I'm pretty sure such an outstanding scientifical mind as his would never engage in such tomfoolery!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 17 2022, @02:54PM (4 children)
As we all know, there is no carbon in cooking oil.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:18PM
The carbon in the cooking oil has been extracted from air by the plants the oil was made of. Well, technically that's true also for crude oil, but the difference is that the plants for that were growing millions of years ago, so we're reintroducing carbon that has been away from the surface for a very long time.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Sunday July 17 2022, @04:44PM (2 children)
You forgot the /s.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @05:00PM (1 child)
Thanks, exactly what I was about to write. I've done it too: make the mistake of thinking everyone here is intelligent enough to recognize sarcasm, and hopefully if they don't grasp the sarcasm, they don't downmod. IMHO the mod system doesn't quite work correctly (and I'm not sure what would, more of a hierarchy of mod-point power maybe, with reviews, appeals, and corrections?)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @03:50PM
Telling him to add the /s WAS the sarcasm!
He actually believes all that dopey nonsense....
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @04:51PM (1 child)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263933/production-of-vegetable-oils-worldwide-since-2000/ [statista.com]
About 210 million metric tons of vegetable oil produced per year. So how much of those can be converted to "used cooking oil" and then into usable jet fuel?
In 2019 the global jet fuel consumption was 7.9 million barrels per day
In 2021 the global jet fuel consumption was about 5.4 million barrels per day
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-jet-fuel-idUSKBN2AI0BU [reuters.com]
1 barrel of kerosene is about 127kg.
7.9 million x 127kg x 365 = 366 million metric tons.
5.4 million x 127kg x 365 = 250 million metric tons.
I also heard a lot of wailing, screaming and boycotts when Indonesia was clearing forests for palm oil. Go figure how much forest has to be cleared if you want to use soybean oil instead (hint you'd need a larger area for soybean oil).
Another note: if you go straight to unused vegetable oils then it gets "dangerous" because the richer people can afford to pay more for oil to feed their jets and other vehicles than the poor people can afford to pay for oil to feed themselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @03:01AM
> ...if you want to use soybean oil instead
A local dairy farm grows soybeans for part of their cows feed. But the soy oil isn't great for the cows, so they run the beans through a press and feed the de-oiled bean mush to the happy cows. The soy oil burns perfectly well in their older diesel tractors--when cut 50-50 with regular diesel. They don't bother with any of the conversions to bio-diesel fuel, just straight half-and-half mix. Cuts their diesel costs in half.
Just wait, pretty soon the farm lobby will be pushing for 10% soy oil in diesel (parallel construction to 10% ethanol in gasoline).
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by looorg on Sunday July 17 2022, @05:54PM (1 child)
So does it smell like fries when the plane goes by?
Also how many deep fried X do you need to do to make say a gallon of HEFA-SPK? It's not that I don't think they'll have supply problems considering how much fast fried food there is etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Monday July 18 2022, @03:36AM
It's not like that used cooking oil goes to waste as it is. It goes into pet food, household chemicals, and the like. So if it winds up burned in an Airbus instead, that used oil will need to be replaced with fresh-source fats and oils, and all the stuff presently made from used cooking oil will become more expensive.
One should remember that what really saved the whales was... kerosene.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sonamchauhan on Monday July 18 2022, @06:56AM (4 children)
How many clogged arteries does a fully laden Airbus A380 require, per mile?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 18 2022, @06:08PM (1 child)
African or European clogged arteries?
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Thursday July 21 2022, @11:28PM
Both, though there are proportionally fewer African ones at this point. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466936/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Monday July 18 2022, @09:38PM (1 child)
There is a school of thought that carbohydrates clog arteries, not fats and oils. It veers toward conspiracy theory stuff, but I find the topic intriguing nonetheless.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793267/ [nih.gov]
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/in-depth/carbs-higher-risk-heart-disease-states-leading-cardiologist-dr-salim-yusuf/ [diabetes.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Thursday July 21 2022, @11:26PM
Yes, I largely agree.. but the large amount of poor quality and partly rancid fats we consume make things worse. The existence of waste cooking oil implies intake of carbohydrates fried in it (say, chips, batter). It also implies as well as intake of an oily witches brew of unbalanced omega3/6s, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and rancid oxidized components.
For money, the Esselstyn method is the only effective way to prevent and reverse heart and blood vessel disease... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466936/ [nih.gov]