AViation apparently contributes less than 3% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but this % is rising fast.

One would have thought that an industry that regards safety above anything else would be the last to switch to alternative fuels, but surprise, surprise. Many airlines are apparently keen to test biofuels in order to reduce their contribution to climate change and global warming.

I have come across airlines such as United and Virgin Atlantic trying out biofuels made from camelina, jatropha and even algae in their trial flights.

I think it is exciting to have this industry being a pioneer in biofuel use. What are your thoughts about this?

 It doesn't take you hours of reading to figure out that the biodiesel industry is in trouble. Unless of course you are in Malaysia or Indonesia where palm oil is still overflowing and cheaply.

One of the key reasons for the problems that the biodiesel industry face is the choice of feedstock - or to be more precise, the lack of choice. In most parts of the world (especially in countries like India), use of soy, palm or sunflower as a feedstock is out of question as these countries do not even produce enough of these oils to meet their citizens' food requirements!

Plus anyway, the yields of any of the above mentioned feedstock is such that they cannot replace petroleum even if all the crop land in the world are used for cultivating them!

So, what is the answer? Algae? But algae is still in the research stages...

Ultimately, we need to find feedstock whose yields are very high, and that can grow in marginal lands with relatively low inputs of water, fertilizer and pesticides.

What is your opinion on the future of biodiesel and the future of biodiesel feedstock?

 Camelina is one of the newest darlings as a biodiesel feedstock. Hype aside, what indeed is the real status of camelina in terms of biodiesel production? Are there are any medium or large scale biodiesel refineries using camelina as a feedsatock?

My interest in camelina was further piqued when I saw this post that claimed all flights will run on camelina biofuel by 2025. That sounds preposterous to me.

To my knowledge, no one is producing biofuel on even a medium scale from camelina right now. How are folks certain that this feedstock is the best and could scale to produce commercial quantities of biofuels?

What is your take on camelina as a biofuel feedstock?

Malaysia and Indonesia together account for over 80% of worldwide palm oil production, so it should not be any surprise to hear that they plan to have a 5% mandatory blend of biodiesel in all diesel vehicles from 2011 onwards. In fact, the question should be, "why only 5%?"!

The biodiesel industry provides handsome forex to the Malaysian and Indonesian governments. It is hence only natural that these nations are very positive about the use of palm in biodiesel.

But not all of them from these countries are equally excited. There are enough voices that are saying that such large scale palm plantations for biodiesel production (many times cutting down forest areas) is not sustainable.

What are your views on this important matter? How should Malaysia and Indonesia approach the palm biodiesel opportunity?

All our eyes should be on Novozymes rather than on companies such as Coskata or Mascoma, when it comes to cellulosic ethanol. Why?

I strongly think that the best chance to produce cellulosic ethanol at competitive costs will be to have really low cost cellulase enzymes. And it looks like cheap enzymes might be available sometime soon in future, through interesting innovations (for instance, see this post on cheap cellulosic ethanol production using immobilized enzymes).

What is your opinion on the possibility of having cheap cellulase enzymes within the next three years (say, at about half the cost that it is right now. It right now costs about 40 cents a gallon).

A nice way to introduce a new thread. As a result I had a look at an on-line site and found the following.:

Camelina sativa, usually known in English as camelina, gold-of-pleasure, or false flax, also occasionally wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame, and Siberian oilseed, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae which includes mustard, cabbage, rapeseed, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussels sprouts. It is native to Northern Europe and to Central Asian areas, but has been introduced to North America, possibly as a weed in flax.

I also saw that KLM are looking at it as an aviation fuel.

It might also interest members for you to explain something of your background and the reasons why your posting of four closely related threads, reference a single site on the subject.

Attaboy, Peter. Keep moderating these people. At a guess, USA - refs to cents a gallon.

old mcdonald:

Keep moderating these people

He came up with two more today. His subject matter is interesting and worthy of debate. However, he is obviousely just promoting a specific web page on which dicussion can proceed, whereas, FW want discussion to proceed here.