'Green' Fighter Jet Taps New Kind of Power Plant

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'Green' Fighter Jet Taps New Kind of Power Plant
Judy Pasternak

(May 20) -- The Green Hornet is screaming regularly across the skies above Maryland's Patuxent River Naval Air Station these days, cracking the sound barrier with a thunderous boom. The fighter plane is like any other F/A-18 Super Hornet in every respect but one: Half of the fuel in its engines comes from petroleum, and half from a woody flowering plant called camelina.

And the Green Hornet, which is being tested here through June, is only the latest in a spate of aircraft flying on plant power. Within the past two years, at least six military and commercial planes with biodiesel in their tanks have lifted off around the world, from Tokyo Haneda to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental.

Saul Loeb, AFP / Getty Images
President Barack Obama walks up to the Green Hornet at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on March 31. In addition to petroleum, the fighter plane uses biofuel from a woody flowering plant.

Can fuel made from weeds, nuts and pond scum keep people and freight aloft while helping keep global warming down? Many scientists seem to think so. "These tests are so important because right now there are not a lot of other options," Daniel Kammen, a University of California, Berkeley, expert on sustainable fuels, told AOL News.

Air travel has presented a seemingly intractable problem in the effort to minimize the impact of climate change. Aviation contributes about 2.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, a significant slice. By flying 10,000 miles in a year, people can easily double their carbon footprint, according to David Fahey, a physicist at the federal Earth System Research Laboratory in Colorado.

And air traffic is increasing worldwide as nations' intertwined economies bounce back from the recession, observers say. "There's no real constraint on these international emissions," said Nathan Hultman, an expert on international climate policy at University of Maryland. "It doesn't seem fair to reduce carbon from electricity and have that effort wiped out by growth in aviation."

Unlike cars, airplanes can't use hydrogen or fuel cells. The first hopes for a practical solution came in 2008, when a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 left London -- without passengers, just in case -- while one engine ran on 20 percent oil from coconuts and babassu nuts. Ninety minutes later, the jet landed safely in Amsterdam.

Some dismissed the flight as a stunt. But then in 2009, an Air New Zealand jumbo jet flew on a 50-50 blend of jet fuel and oil from jatropha seeds, grown in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. And that same year a Continental Airlines twin-engine jet with algae and jatropha mixed into one of its tanks swooped over the Gulf of Mexico.

Among biofuels, camelina -- homegrown in Montana -- is the latest darling. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been touting it for years, going so far as to call it his "new girlfriend." The rap on most biofuel crops is that they compete with food crops for land, and that their use can actually increase emissions when fertilizing and processing are factored in. But camelina, also known as "gold of pleasure" for its tiny yellow blossoms and, less lyrically, as "false flax," can be grown on marginal land and doesn't need much water or fertilizer. A Michigan Tech study concluded that camelina, from cultivation to combustion, produces 84 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional petroleum jet fuel.

Though widespread production and use are years away, camelina is being put to the test not only by the Navy, but also by Japan Airlines and the Air Force. The Hornet's test pilots have reported the same results as the others: no discernible difference from any other flight. "All I needed to do," said Lt. Cmdr. Tom Weaver, "was just fly the plane."
Filed under: Nation, Science

[Argyle58]

Camelina oil is not new, the Romans used it as lamp oil. It is of the same plant family as hemp and marijuana (and has been used similarly as both) and is as easily cultivated as either. However, to say that it reduces the "carbon footprint" of users is incorrect. The carbon emissions from camelina extracts is equivalent to the burning of common jet fuel. Similar to the conversion of corn based ethanol, soy, used vegetable oil and other such fuels, it's greatest advantage is that it is renewable, i.e., we can grow and distill fuel from this source forever......but the "damage" to the ecology is similar.

 

Such is the conundrum of the "Green Movement". They continually find ways to perpetuate our current technology. Nothing in this has any impact on the environment. It's sole attraction is that it sticks it to "Big Oil".

 

I don't necessarily have a problem with the use of distilled camelina as a fuel, as long as it can be proven to be fiscally advantageous. Ethanol costs more per erg to produce than it delivers in application. What I do have a problem with is calling it "Green", because it is not.