animal fats mustard seeds garbage and
used cooking oil are just some of the
products being used to make jet fuel
airlines have been experimenting with
biofuels for years but because of
inconsistent investment the year of
cheap oil and high production cost
biofuels still account for less than 0.1
percent of total aviation fuel
consumption while airline efforts to
ramp up biofuel use may be delayed as
they struggle to weather the global
pandemic environmental impact becoming a
top issue means more widespread use is
likely to take place in the coming years
this is your Bloomberg quick take on
aviation turning to biofuel in the past
the use of biofuels was usually driven
by a lack of petrochemicals for example
in world war ii there was fuel shortages
in many countries as they can import and
as they usually would this led to a lot
of non oil-producing countries coming up
with inventions to make fuel from
resources that they do have such as
grains or vegetables when the shortage
ended so did the interest in biofuels
global demand for biofuel rose when oil
prices were high when they came back
down so did the demand for biofuel
nowadays the motivation around biofuels
is more around environmental reasons
global warming is wreaking havoc on the
planet an aviation is among the worst
polluters with about 10,000 planes in
the air at any given moment during
normal times they account for 3 percent
of all carbon emissions one
economy-class
round-trip flight from New York to
London is all it takes to generate the
same amount of carbon pollution as
powering every light bulb phone
television computer and kitchen
appliance in the average Americans home
for two months and it's only going to
get worse by 2038 the number of air
passengers is set to double what it is
now
marine sector for example or aviation
have all committed to reduce their
carbon emissions and biofuels will play
a key role for those industries which
have limited other alternatives
you can't Electrify an aeroplane as
easily as you can Electrify a passenger
car batteries are not only extremely
heavy power outputs and cooling systems
would have to be improved for the
requirements of taking off and landing
although electric flight technology is
in testing for small planes progress on
a larger scale will likely be measured
in decades not years biofuels are
generally made using chemical reactions
fermentation and heat to break down the
starches sugars and other molecules and
plants the resulting products are then
refined to produce a fuel that vehicles
can use burning biofuel from renewable
sources such as waste oil lumber and
algae produces less co2 than fossil
fuels so biofuels contain a lot fewer
pollutants in their chemical structure
and therefore they burn cleaner and
because plants absorb co2 when they're
growing this offsets the carbon that's
emitted when they're burned next
generation biofuels go a step further by
making use of waste that humans already
create one of the largest producers is
Finnish oil giant nest air which
supplies airlines and airports with fuel
made from waste products such as fat or
vegetable oil with a new refinery in
Singapore on the way nestor says it will
have the capacity to produce over 1
million tons of sustainable aviation
fuel by 2022 furthermore
governments and regulators are starting
to encourage the use of biofuel the
International Air Transport Association
has set a target for all airlines to
reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2050
Norway is even requiring Airlines to use
a point 5 percent mixture of biofuel on
all flights which may not seem like a
lot but requirements that are too high
can be counterproductive because bio jet
fuel is currently three to four times
more expensive than fossil jet fuel
Airlines fueling in these countries that
are enforcing blending
days might be incentivized to carry more
amounts of fuel so they don't have to
buy as much in those more expensive
countries carrying more fuel makes your
aircraft heavier and therefore could
create more emissions and there are
other hurdles if scaled up fuel made
from waste products may not have enough
supply to meet demand and not all
biofuels are environmentally friendly if
they're made from products like corn it
can cost vast amounts of resources water
land and fertilizer that causes
pollution it can lead to food price
increases or deforestation to clear the
land to grow these crops one example of
this is for palm oil which has led to
deforestation in countries such as
Indonesia and Malaysia this is why it's
important to keep developing new
technologies to diversify the feedstocks
that we can use like agricultural
residue or municipal solid waste to make
bio jet fuel a widespread use of jet
biofuel diversifying feedstocks along
with government incentives to make
biofuels cost competitive with fossil
fuels is needed to finally hit carbon
emissions targets which experts say will
ultimately reduce the aviation
industries carbon footprint by up to 80%
[Music]
you