Facing an uncertain future with biofuels policy under scrutiny, the advanced biofuels industry convened for a three day conference in San Francisco earlier this month. Jointly organized by Green Power Conferences and Biofuels Digest, the Advanced Biofuels Markets conference is one of the few industry events bringing together industry leaders from all shades of advanced biofuel interests – algae, cellulosic biofuels, advanced biodiesel, aviation biofuels, and others – as well as key public-sector stakeholders.

Coming off several years of steady industry growth but facing a difficult 2012, Advanced Biofuels Markets 2011 was tinged with exigency. With deficit reduction at the forefront of policy objectives for Congress, a reexamination of cornerstone policies supporting biofuels growth is expected. At risk of being scrapped altogether, the checkerboard foundation of biofuels policy initiatives spanning EPA, USDA, the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Defense, Treasury and others – including RFS2, Title IX programs under the Farm Bill, DOE loan guarantees, VEETC, etc. – may be placed on the chopping block one by one (or in the most dramatic scenario, slashed all at once).

What does this mean for an industry on the cusp of commercialization, but still a few nickels to several dollars shy of price parity with a gallon of petroleum fuel? For the most part, it adds a great deal of uncertainty, making an already difficult financing story even more risky for would-be investors. In the more extreme case, the sentiment among conference panelists was that the industry is now fighting for its future existence in the U.S.

The Lost Years

With an unresolved deficit crisis casting an ominous shadow over 2012, the coming year is shaping up to be challenging for advanced biofuel companies still navigating the funding “valley of death” and facing a particularly daunting scale-up challenge. Just as many advanced ethanol projects are beginning to break ground, a number of incentive and loan programs are likely to be nixed. Energy provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill are of primary concern. Programs, including USDA loan guarantees for biorefinery projects, Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), and Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), are all critical lifelines for an industry still looking to establish a foothold.

Addressing the so far undelivered promise of cellulosic biofuels – biofuels derived from the lignocellulose portion of plant matter – Alan Shaw, CEO of Codexis, explained that the technology is “late to its own party.” After lobbying for nearly a decade for R&D funding, inclusion in biofuels mandates, and subsidy parity with conventional biofuels, the cellulosic biofuels industry has received a great deal of support over the last couple of years. While not necessarily on equal footing with conventional (corn-based) ethanol, cellulosic biofuels were given a commercialization runway to 16 billion gallon by 2022 under the EPA’s RFS2 mandate. But only a few million gallons of cellulosic biofuels have been produced and the first facilities are still under construction, forcing policymakers to question the viability of the technology in the near-term.

The failure of cellulosic biofuels to capitalize on its opportunity thus far has led to increased attention to technologies such as pyrolysis and thermo-catalytic or advanced sugar fermentation. As a result, cellulosic biofuels – once the priority advanced conversion pathway for the DOE – are now finding it difficult to raise capital to support widespread scale-up. Many panelists at the conference concurred that it’s time to deliver or risk losing priority status among advanced biofuel conversion pathways.

In our Biofuels Markets and Technologies report, we forecast growth rates in the U.S. biofuels industry to lag behind other regions.

“Don’t Mess with the RFS”

Of particular concern among industry stakeholders at the conference is the battle to hold the line on the EPA’s RFS2 biofuels mandate, which aims to boost biofuel production in the United States through 2022. Although RFS2 has proved to be a complex rule to implement, it is one of the few mandates worldwide that carves out specific volume requirements for various biofuel conversion pathways.

While some in the advanced biofuels industry are calling for opening up the mandate to more advanced pathways (such as algae-based biofuels, waste-derived fuels, etc.), most warn that doing so would mean opening up the standard entirely, which could jeopardize its continued existence. In any case, within the broader battle for favorable treatment of advanced biofuels in Washington, RFS2 is seen as the last line of defense for an industry still struggling to gain a foothold.

Key Takeaways

To turn the corner on advanced biofuels commercialization, conference panelists urged producers to remain flexible with respect to feedstock and end-product. With policy up in the air, the ability to shift production to advanced chemicals, aviation biofuels, and ground transportation fuel depending on market forces and prevailing policy sentiment will make projects a far more attractive bet for skittish investors. Partnering, especially with oil majors, multinational chemical and consumer product companies, and other end-market players, is increasingly seen as the way forward in a challenging financing environment.

Article by Mackinnon Lawrence, appearing courtesy the Matter Network.

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One of the most promising types of raw materials to produce biofuel being researched is algae. Today the technology reaches new heights with United Airlines’ Flight 1403 between Houston and Chicago, The historic flight departs Bush International Airport at 10:25 am CT from terminal C, and lands at Chicago O’Hare at 1:01pm CT, arriving at United’s Terminal 1.

The flight is partially powered with Solazyme’s algae biofuel, making it the first commercial flight powered with algae biofuels. Solajet, the trademark name of the fuel, is a 40/60 blend of algae-based fuel and petroleum-based traditional jet fuel.

Solazyme makes Solajet by turning agricultural waste into algal oil, which is then adapted to produce jet fuel. The company says that over its lifecycle its Solajet reduces emissions by 93 per cent compared with standard jet fuel.

Biofuel made of cooking oil

It’s not only United Airlines that is flying on biofuel, though. Alaska Airlines has announced it will fly 75 commercial passenger flights powered by biofuel starting on Wednesday.

The company will be using 20 percent blend biofuel made from used cooking oil which meets “rigorous international safety and sustainability standards.” Two maiden biofuel-powered flights will leave Seattle on November 9 for Washington, D.C., and Portland in Oregon. Alaska Airlines and its sister carrier, Horizon Air, will continue to operate select flights between Seattle and the two cities over the next few weeks using the same biofuel and blend.

Alaska Air estimates the 20 percent certified biofuel blend it is using for the 75 flights will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 10 percent, or 134 metric tons, the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road for a year. It all Alaska Air flights were powered with the biofuel with a 20 per cent blend, the company estimates it would equal to removing nearly 64,000 cars off the road or providing electricity to 28,000 homes.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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Already languishing in the current deficit/debt landscape and facing mounting criticism in the wake of the Solyndra bankruptcy, the much-maligned DOE Section 1705 loan guarantee program came to a close last week with a flurry of activity. Despite frustration with the program in the biofuels industry, centering on delays and process uncertainty, two advanced biofuels awards – $105 million to cellulosic ethanol giant POET’s Project LIBERTY in Iowa and $133.9 million for Abengoa Bioenergy for an advanced biofuels plant in Kansas –were among the 11th-hour clean energy qualifiers.

What do the awards mean for the U.S. biofuels industry and what impact will the end of Section 1705 have on the industry’s chances of reaching a mandated 36 billion gallons per year (BGPY) of total biofuels by 2022? The answer to both questions requires a look at the state of cellulosic biofuels in the U.S., which under the EPA’s revised Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), must deliver 16 BGPY by 2022, or 44 percent of the entire 36 BGPY RFS2 mandate.

In its Biofuels Strategic Production Report (June 2010), the USDA estimated that 527 biorefineries would need to be built at a cost of $168 billion to meet the additional 21 billion gallons per year (BGPY) of advanced biofuels mandated by 2022 under RFS2. That works out to the commissioning of around 36 cellulosic biorefineries and an investment of at least $11 billion per year for cellulosic biofuels alone.

Together, the POET and Abengoa projects will produce roughly 50 MGPY of cellulosic biofuels. Although a far cry from RFS2’s 16 BGPY cellulosic mandate for 2022, and accounting for less than 1 percent of the USDA’s annual investment projection, the DOE loan guarantee provides an important cash outlay designed to get these projects up and running.

Even if more aggressive investments were to come from Big Oil, the cellulosic biofuels industry, which is still in its infancy, is facing a formidable financing challenge in the decade ahead. Given the scale of the U.S. fuel market in which biofuels must compete – 300 BGPY of petroleum demand representing nearly $1 trillion in market value for transportation fuel alone – a long-term growth outlook is necessary. Seen in this light, the point of the DOE loan program was never to hit home runs, but rather to return value to taxpayers in the form of improved energy infrastructure without the externalities associated with traditional forms of energy.

As we noted in our Algae-Based Biofuels report, the advanced biofuels industry needs to demonstrate commercial-scale viability for projects to attract the private capital necessary for widespread scale-up. By helping drive steel in the ground for these early projects, DOE financing could lead to valuable proof-of-concept data that may be used to attract risk-averse private investors in order to drive broader commercialization efforts.

In our recently published Biofuels Markets and Technologies report, Pike Research assumes that many first round cellulosic biofuels plants will become obsolete – in many cases, even before opening their doors – as a range of technology pathways emerge in rapid succession in the coming decade. This makes the availability of public financing all the more important. While we project that biofuels production will miss the RFS2 targets in the latter half of this decade, our estimation that cellulosic biofuels capacity will increase more rapidly in the 2016 to 2018 window depends on the availability of government financing like the DOE’s loan guarantee program to push the industry through a difficult near-term scale-up period fraught with investor anxiety.

Absent public financing mechanisms like the DOE’s 1705 program, we expect the U.S. advanced biofuels industry’s near-term scale-up efforts to slow and potentially stagnate with its long-term fate falling squarely in the lap of the USDA (assuming their biofuels programs survive budget scrutiny), the U.S. military, and international oil markets.

Article by Mackinnon Lawrence, appearing courtesy the Matter Network.

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A bipartisan panel of scientists, former government officials, and energy experts is urging the U.S. government to explore the potential benefits, costs, and risks of geoengineering schemes to slow global warming.

In a new report, the 18-member panel convened by the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center concedes that the use of technology to slow or reverse global warming — such as scattering light-reflecting aerosols into the atmosphere or seeding the oceans with iron to trigger CO2-absorbing algae blooms — is “no substitute” for cutting carbon dioxide emissions. But with the failure of the U.S. and the international community to take meaningful measures to reduce CO2 emissions, the panel recommends that the U.S. government should begin researching and testing alternatives in case the Earth’s climate system reaches a “tipping point” and immediate remedial action is required.

“The federal government is the only entity that has the incentive, responsibility, and capacity to run a broad, systematic, and effective program,” the report says. “It can also play an important role in effectively establishing international research norms.”

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

photo: NASA

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BAL Chile SA is currently farming algae on Chiloé Island eventually to produce biofuels for industrial use.

BAL Chile SA CEO Benjamin González said, “Within the next five years we expect to be producing at commercial scale. At present, BAL is developing algae farming on the island of Chiloé and we are looking for alternatives to expand our testing in the north. There has been significant algae productivity improvements and cost reductions,” adding that by 2013 “the company expects to achieve the necessary production parameters for the commercial viability of the production of carbohydrates based on seaweed aquaculture farming.”

As macro-algae grow in the water, they do not have lignin, a compound in which plants tend to store sugars and that makes bio-disposition difficult but González noted of his company’s efforts, ”This, together with the enzymes produced by the microbes developed by BAL, makes entry easier and more economical to these sugars,” Mercopress reported.

According to González, BAL has partnered with U.S. firm DuPont and Norway’s Statoil to proceed, while garnering fiscal underwriting from various global private equity firms, including X/Seed (California), Chioe’s Capital Austral, Norway’s Energy Capital Management, the U.S. Department of Energy and Chilean firm Innova Corfo.

Article by Charles Kennedy, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com

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Solazyme is a South San Francisco company that makes oil from microalgae. Instead of providing sunlight and carbon dioxide for direct photosynthesis, Solazyme feeds the algae sugars from various biomass feedstocks in the absence of light using fermentation tanks.

Solazyme recently signed a deal with Bunge, a large Brazilian agribusiness company, to build an algae oil plant in Brazil (see Greentech Media’s coverage of the deal).

The facility will take advantage of Brazil’s plentiful sugar cane and feed sugar cane juice to the algae to produce on the order of 100,000 metric tons of triglyceride oils a year.

Using Cleantech PatentEdge™, I found Solazyme’s U.S. Patent No. 7,935,515 (’515 Patent), which is entitled “Recombinant microalgae cells producing novel oils” and relates to making triglycerides out of sugar cane.

In particular, the ’515 Patent is directed to genetically altered microalgae cells of the genus Prototheca having exogenous genes encoding various enzymes in the biochemical pathway from sucrose to fatty acids.

One of the enzymes recited in independent claim 1 is sucrose invertase, which hydrolyzes sucrose to glucose and fructose.

Other enzymes in claim 1 include a fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase, which hydrolyzes a fatty acyl-ACP substrate, a fatty acyl-CoA aldehyde reductase, which reduces a fatty acyl-CoA molecule to a primary alcohol, a fatty acyl-CoA reductase, which reduces a fatty acyl-CoA molecule to an aldehyde, and a fatty aldehyde decarbonylase, which converts a fatty aldehyde to an alkane or alkene.

The ’515 Patent also describes and claims methods of manufacturing triglyceride oils using sugar cane or sugar beets as the feedstock in a heterotrophic (growing in the dark) fermentation.

For example, independent claim 11 is directed to a cell with a thioesterase gene encoding a fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase, with claim 18 reciting a method of cultivating the cell under heterotrophic conditions to make a triglyceride composition using sucrose as a carbon source.

Solazyme is not the first U.S. biofuels company to find Brazil’s sugar and biofuels production ability very sweet, and is also not the first to partner with Bunge. In December 2009 Fremont, California-based Amyris Biotechnologies announced that it had entered letters of intent with Brazilian sugar and ethanol producers, including Bunge, to produce renewable chemicals and fuels.

This trend is one example of tech transfer between U.S. clean tech innovators on the one hand and emerging market and developing country partners on the other hand and belies claims by Brazil, China and other developing nations that IP rights are acting as a barrier to international transfer of clean technologies (see China View article here and my previous post here).

Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.

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Two weeks ago, a Gulfstream G-450 loaded with journalists and executives from Honeywell’s energy division, UOP, departed from Morristown, N.J. and touched down at Le Bourget Airport after an “utterly unremarkable” flight.

The purpose of the flight, which retraced Charles Lindbergh’s historic 1927 pond crossing, was to prove for the Paris Air Show the viability of the fuel that held them aloft: 50-50 blend of jet fuel and a biofuel derived from camelina, a seed plant. The blend saved 5.5 metric tons of carbon emissions for the flight compared to straight jet fuel, according to the company. (A 747 crossed the Atlantic several days later on a similar biofuel blend.)

Jim Rekoske, vice president and general manager of Renewable Energy and Chemicals for UOP, said that recent events had brought biofuels “one step closer to commercial use that will help the aviation community reduce its carbon footprint and dependence on crude.”

Not everyone was impressed.

“It would have been a technical shocker only if the fuel didn’t work,” said James Bartis, a biofuels expert at the Rand Corp.

Aviation biofuels derived from camelina, jatropha, algae and other sources have been hyped, and funded, for years as petroleum alternatives that are just years away from widespread adoption. This view was affirmed in June when the oil-product standards body ASTM International granted preliminary approval for commercial airlines to use aviation biofuels (also known as BIO SPK).

The approval comes as airlines are facing pressure, particularly in Europe, to reduce their emissions, which account for 2 percent of global carbon emissions.

Despite the obvious appeal of biofuels for energy security and environmental sustainability, analysts, researchers and even some within the industry remain skeptical that large numbers of passengers will be kept aloft by pond scum and scrub plants anytime soon.

Scalability an issue

The issue isn’t whether biofuels can power jets – that’s largely been proven.

The question is whether biofuels can be produced at a large enough scale to offset petroleum use – some 19 million barrels per day, according to RAND.

Bartis believes that algae has more potential but is still “a research topic,” and the industry needs to mature.

Another knock against some biofuels is their carbon footprint.

Some fuels, such as palm oil grown in clear cut rainforests, require energy-intensive processing and adverse changes to land use that they result in higher carbon emissions than oil throughout their “lifecycle,” according to research by James Hileman principal research engineer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.

Hileman said that the biofuels industry will get better at reducing its carbon footprint as it matures, but a headlong rush into biofuels without this kind of analysis would be a mistake.

Commercially viable in 2020?

None of this, however, precludes the possibility that individual biofuel companies will be successful.

One particular bright spot in biofuels has been Solazyme, a San Francisco-based company that grows algae in the dark by feeding them sugars. The company raised about $200 million in an initial public offering in May.

Yields from camelina, jatropha and other seed oils are so low that they could only provide a fraction of a percent of oil’s production, according to Bartis.

In January, he co-authored a coruscating report for Rand’s National Defense Research Institute that concluded the U.S. Defense Department received no benefit from its considerable investment in biofuels. (The Pentagon replied that every domestically produced barrel of biofuels improves U.S. energy security.)

Cameron Byers, Solazyme’s senior vice president and general manager of fuels and chemicals, said the company could produce renewable oils at $3.44 per gallon in a purpose-built commercial plant.

Solazyme recently tested its fuel, which reduces lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions 66-93 percent compared to petroleum-based fuels, in a U.S. Navy helicopter, Byers wrote in an email.

Solazyme may be a good investment, but experts noted that the process still requires feeding sugars or other biomass to the algae, which limits its scalability. There is more hope for photosynthetic processes that require only sunlight – ExxonMobil has invested in one such venture, called Synthetic Genomics – but that could be years away.

Meanwhile, many algae companies are using the algae for other end uses, such as cosmetics, supplements and food, since biofuels are generally too expensive currently to be commercially viable, according to Mackinnon Lawrence, a biofuels industry analyst who recently authored a report for Pike Research on the industry.

“The fuels market is just looking further off than people were hoping for,” Lawrence said.

How far off?

Lawrence said it could be 2020 before biofuels have a significant impact on the market.

Bartis argued by analogy that the date could be further off still.

“When I joined the Energy Department in 1978, we were sure that photovoltaic (solar panels) were five years away from being commercially viable,” Bartis said. “They’ve been five years away ever since.”

Article appearing courtesy Txchnologist.

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If you have been paying even the slightest attention to the algae industry, you probably have heard of companies like Solazyme or Synthetic Genomics, the big names that are making big public strides in the field. Algasol Renewables, on the other hand, is one name in the industry that you have probably never heard mentioned. However, Algasol looks to be on the brink of joining those big names as one of leaders in the algae industry with their photobioreactor system.

Photobioreactors (or PBR’s) come in many different shapes, sizes, and designs. Essentially, they consist of some clear material formed in a way that it can hold an algae-containing liquid. Typically, you will find them looking like long tubes, snaking back and forth, that allow sunlight to reach the algae-water concentration that is pumped through it. They work great for growing algae but have typically suffered from high initial and operating costs.

This is where Algasol comes into play. They have designed a photobioreactor system that can potentially cut costs by 90 percent. How have they done this? Well, their thinking has taken them outside the tube and placed them into a bag.

Basically, their system grows freshwater microalgae in large plastic bags that float on top of bodies of saltwater. There, as in any other bioreactor, nutrients and CO2 are pumped in to feed the algae.

This design led Frost & Sullivan to give Algasol their 2010 “Global Algae Biofuels Award.” According to them, “Algasol Renewables provides a critical and innovative method for micro algae biomass production. Its modular floating bag technology, a new variation of photobioreactors (PBRs), provides a low-cost design coupled with industrial scalability, optimal light exposure, high biomass concentration, low energy consumption, and efficient system control.”

The oceans of the world have a great potential to be the location for floating algae farms. First off, oceans cover around 70 percent of the world. With land (especially agricultural land) becoming a very precious commodity, moving production of fuel offshore is a major bonus.

Additionally, the ocean cuts out a lot of the energy costs associated with traditional PBR’s. For example, the water surrounding the bags acts as a temperature buffer, a process that would require spraying down the outsides of the photobioreactor in typical systems. Also, the wave action in the ocean helps to mix the algae in the bags, something that would otherwise take additional energy in land-based designs.

Now, some may be concerned about putting all this plastic into the ocean should a storm comes along or worried about what happens if these bags break. Luckily, engineers at Algasol have addressed both of these problems. If a storm comes along, the bags have been designed to be submerged beneath the water to levels up to 250 feet. There, they can wait out a tropical storm, hurricane, etc.

Researchers are also not too concerned if one of the bags breaks. Since the algae will be freshwater species, they will die when exposed to saltwater and there, researchers have concluded, they can become food for fish and other marine life.

Their system has proven very successful in testing conducted in conjunction with Arizona State University. Right now, after taking account for the costs, they estimate that a 250 hectares (or 418 acres) system can produce oil at $1.40/gallon before refining, or roughly $60 a barrel.

These costs are actually calculated from the lower end of production levels (35 grams of algae per square meter). Algasol has achieved significantly higher production levels and higher productivity would potentially lower the cost even more. However, reaching these production levels rely more on outside factors than on the system itself.

“At the end of the day, we are dealing with a live organism here,” Miguel Verhein, Executive Director of Algasol said. “If this organism is not taken care of under the right conditions, then we can have a variation in productivity that is irrelevant to the photobioreactor system.”

Overall, Algasol is solely a technology company that, according to Verhein, “just wanted to make the best PBR based on CAPEX/OPEX and scalability.” As such, their goal is to sell their patented product and method to companies rather than produce the algae themselves.

This goal is quickly becoming a reality, with several organizations, including one large oil company, looking to purchase their technology. As with algae industry as a whole, all that seems to be required for Algasol to make it big is a little more time.

Article by Jonathan Williams, appearing courtesy Celsias.

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Investors looking for the next big thing after a hydrocarbon economy have a panoply of options, from solar to wind, as well as biofuels.

In terms of quickly ramping up production biofuels clearly win the race, but navigating the PR fluff and reality is not a simple thing.

The three main contenders for investor dollars are algae, jatropha and camelina. All have strengths and weaknesses, leaving investors to choose amongst them. Stripped of PR flummery, the only issue is where and when production can begin on a viable commercial scale. Investors who unravel the complexities of biofuel production and have cast-iron stomachs stand to profit, but biofuel production in the U.S, while having major players like Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group, are moving their chess pieces around a board already gamed by the major players.

While everyone agrees that biofuels are the future, investment is lagging.

But the interest is there. Fuel and oil comprise 25 percent of civilian airlines’ operating costs. When the price of jet fuel rises one cent, it increases the global cost of aviation $195 million.

Camelina as an additive is a “drop in” fuel – engines need no modification, and a series of Pentagon tests over the last two years have proven its feasibility as something to add to a 50 percent JP-8 blend. The Pentagon

So why, no U.S. production?

The answers are both complex and simple.

First, new biofuels are up against the well established ethanol lobby.

Secondly, given renewables’ battle against the ethanol Goliath, there are yet exist no subsidies, crop insurance or any other incentives to bring farmers on board to provide camelina feedstock, and farmers are hardly the most progressive green community.

Accordingly, U.S. companies such as Sustainable Oils face an uphill battle to sign up farmers, one by one.

But the technology exists, the product has been approved, most notably to fuel USAF C-17 Globemasters, as further Pentagon weapons testing continues.

Unfortunately for biofuel producers, the Pentagon only purchases fuel, and does not invest.

So, at the end of the day, the Pentagon role is passive – as for the civilian market, they are awaiting commercial volumes to be produced.

U.S. production to ramp up camelina derivatives is constrained by a lack of subsidies, crop insurance and record-high commodity prices for such alternatives as ethanol’s major feedstock, corn.

But camelina’s future as a civilian aircraft biofuel has been validated by the March announcement that a European consortium announced a project to produce Jet A-1 for civilian aircraft. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Romanian state-owned airline Tarom and a consortium of partners announced plans to establish a bio-fuel production center in Romania to manufacture fuel for the airline industry.

An American company is also proposing to produce biofuel in Uzbekistan.

So, the question is – how ironclad are investors’ stomachs? The question is no longer if biofuel will be produced – only where and when. Given that it is ultimately an agricultural product, sharp investors may see their profits expand before the end of a growing season.

Article by Dr John C.K. Daly, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com.

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The creation of a sustainable, “bio-derived” aviation industry for Australia and New Zealand can be achieved within two decades, a report by Australia’s top science agency says.

According to the report by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the region has enough sources of non-food biomass — including crop and forestry residue, municipal waste, and algae — to support a local jet fuel industry and make the region less reliant on imported aviation fuels.

In addition to cutting aviation-related greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent, the report projects that in Australia the amount spent spent annually on imported fossil fuels could be slashed by $2 billion.

By 2050, the report predicts, about 50 percent of an airline’s fuels could come from biofuels.

But while the bio-derived industry will ultimately be commercially independent, the report says government support will be critical in establishing a supportive market structure and the development of refining plants.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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