2y ago

High-fat flight is first jetliner to make fossil fuel-free trans-Atlantic crossing from London to NY

apnews.com

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2y ago

High-fat flight is first jetliner to make fossil fuel-free trans-Atlantic crossing from London to NY

apnews.com /article/transatlantic-flight-sustainable-aviation-fuel-e25e6a6c7f78e3cadb6c4dca29a37fc8

15 comments

I hope this can continue and expand without outrageous land or water usage or unreasonable costs. I wonder how many times more expensive those SAFs are right now than regular kerosene. And how much lower they can come with economies of scale.
I wonder how did they make a liquid fuel out of tallow, and how many cows does it take to fly from London to NY per one passenger.
- I remember some Discovery channel's show called “the Colony" where they used rotting hog carcasses to power a tractor. They simply heated the hogs to get the tallow out and used it while it was hot to pour it into the diesel engine.
  
  I watched the Colony. I loved that show.
- I'm curious about this too. My father-in-law often talks about using various different oil sources for diesel. He's been wanting to convert his truck for years. Or at least he just likes talking about it.
  Anyway, it's really interesting how used oils can be processed. It's not even that complicated in many cases.
  🐄
  
  I don't have any of the sources on hand. But I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole a while back on how to convert a hot water heater into a biofuel generator. It is surprisingly and stupidly easy
What were the emissions?
- They are still burning hydrocarbons, so basically the same.
  This is green washing at its finest.
  
  Yes, but where the carbon comes from does matter. Burning fossil fuels is bad because it reintroduces previously sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere. If we can shorten the carbon cycle and simultaneously reduce the total amount of free carbon in the atmosphere, it's still a net positive, even though we would still be burning hydrocarbons.
  Of course the less we burn, the better, and I'm sure the water resources used to make the "renewable" fuel are just as problematic and wasteful.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“The world will always assume something can’t be done, until you do it,” said Virgin founder Richard Branson, who was aboard the flight with others including corporate and government officials, engineers and journalists.
The U.K. Transport Department, which provided 1 million pounds ($1.27 million) to plan and operate the flight, called the test a “huge step towards jet zero” to make air travel more environmentally friendly, though large hurdles remain in making the fuel widely available.
While governments have long talked about decarbonizing air travel, the transition has been moving at the pace of a dirigible.
It was also a drop in the bucket compared to the goal of producing 1 billion gallons a year set in 2018 by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Gulfstream Aerospace was the first to make the crossing earlier this month with a business jet powered only by the eco-fuel.
Air France-KLM flew from Paris to Montreal two years ago using a mix of petroleum-based jet fuel and a synthetic derived from waste cooking oils.
The original article contains 499 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

15 comments