back to article Fuel for jets DOES grow on trees

Western Australian farmers who have spent decades planting trees to try and combat salinity might get a payoff: providing jet fuel to Perth airport. A study, Sustainable Mallee Jet Fuel, commissioned by Airbus and undertaken at the Future Farm Industries Cooperative Research Centre, found that carbon emissions from jet fuel …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    So how many percent of the actual fuel usage would that cover?

    1. The Axe

      And how many percent of the actual land usage would that cover? Millons of acres set aside for producing bio-fuel - yep that went well in the US and elsewhere. Not!

      1. Irongut

        Nice to see you bothered to read the article before commenting Axe.

        1. Charles 9

          But the article didn't completely answer the question. There are no hard numbers being bounced around. If you, for example, take one hectare of this plant through the fast pryolysis process being proposed, just how many liters of useable fuel will result? Because let's face it; flying is pretty fuel-intensive, to the point that weight is a constant consideration in terms of flightworthiness.

          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

            All jets I've ever flown in used bio-fuel. Pure refined dinosaur consomme.

            1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

              Actually, these were not dinos but stuff from somewhat earlier, in greater tonnage.

              1. Martin Budden Silver badge

                We are all made of stars.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the cost, in energy terms

    Of producing this fuel would be? Environmental effects and waste by-products?

    1. Charles 9

      Re: And the cost, in energy terms

      Trying to learn more about it. Now, if the plant can be grown in land otherwise unsuitable for food crops, that's a potential boon. A smaller footprint on arable land at least opens the way for some give and take. I'm also particularly interested in the yield: particularly the average final product yield for a given area of land used to grow it.

  3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    Fetch us a ..... SHRUBBERY!!!!!

    I nice one.

    And not to expensive!

    NI!

    sorry, couldn't resist, mine is the one with the Holy Grail DVD in the pocket

  4. brooxta

    This will only end badly

    Isn't anyone else worried the eucalypt oils will gum up the turbines?

    1. A K Stiles

      Re: This will only end badly

      I'll give you an upvote to cancel out that downvote, but you also get a simultaneous groan, for forgetting the joke icon. (please say you forgot the joke icon?)

      1. brooxta

        Re: This will only end badly

        @ A K Stiles

        I was posting using the m.the register.co.UK version of the site which, sadly, is lacking the icon feature. Rest assured the joke icon would have been employed had it been available.

    2. 's water music

      Re: This will only end badly

      Isn't anyone else worried the eucalypt oils will gum up the turbines?

      No, silly, Eucalyptus oil is good for unblocking things.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: This will only end badly

        Next thing they'll be pitching airports as healthy places to live; "Blocked nose, sore throat? Move to Hounslow for instant relief".

    3. Elmer Phud

      Re: This will only end badly

      "Isn't anyone else worried the eucalypt oils will gum up the turbines?"

      Only if you forget to take the Koalas out first.

    4. ToddR

      Re: This will only end badly

      No it should help them breath more easily

      1. brooxta

        Re: This will only end badly

        @ToddR

        Which ones, the koalas or the jet engines?

    5. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: This will only end badly @brooxta

      Have an upvote from me because I thought the joke was funny even without the icon.

  5. TopOnePercent
    Thumb Up

    Excellent news

    Alternatives to dinosaur based jet fuel are one of the major stumbling blocks in bringing to an end the oil age. *IF* we ever get to peak oil, we won't have more than a few decades to resolve the issue or people will face significant lifestyle changes - my own family are spread over 3 countries in 2 continents - visiting would be difficult or impossible without flight.

    There's simply no reason to divert crop space away from human consumable food. We could just abolish the CAP and pay farmers to grow stuff rather than paying them to not grow it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Excellent news

      So what you're saying is, we should divert more land use to breeding dinosaurs?

      (Bet the joke icon doesn't work and someone gives us a lecture on prehistoric plant matter).

      1. ToddR

        Re: Excellent news

        not plant invertebrates

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Yippee....

    ...in a world of rising food prices, what we need is more agricultural land turned over to Biofuels.

    Hint: If you are unaware, this is one of the major reasons crop prices are so high and as corn is also a major live stock food, why meat prices are also high.

    http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/food-price-fears-push-eu-lawmake-news-530400

    1. 9Rune5

      Re: Yippee....

      And what was the price of crops in the 80s?

      Last I looked into this, my conclusion was that many american, european and russian farmers in the 80s shut down because prices were too low to make a profit. In more recent times, the price of oil seems to dictate prices, both prior to and after biofuels became "popular".

      Add to that the amount of biofuels that are produced from waste products (the stuff we or animals will never eat).

      If you are really worried about wasting food, then look into the problem of europeans throwing a third of the food into the trash.

    2. Ogi

      Re: Yippee....

      Additionally, nobody says you have to use Corn for Ethanol production.

      The only reason we even have this as an issue is because in the US, the corn business lobbied the government to stipulate that BioEthanol has to be made from corn (which is actually rather lousy as a fuel. The acreage to gallon of fuel is poor), and it competes with a food crop that is used for human consumption.

      Outside the US, the rest of the world is not crazy, and uses plants more suited for fuel production.

      Using weeds and grasses would be better. Brazil has been producing sugar cane BioEthanol since the 70's, without causing mass hunger.

      Unfortunately, people conclude that ethanol fuel is a dead end, because they see Corn-based ethanol in the US (and all its downsides), and think that it is the only/best way to produce it, when the reality is completely opposite.

    3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Yippee....

      Hint: If you are unaware, this is one of the major reasons crop prices are so high and as corn is also a major live stock food, why meat prices are also high.

      This and also: the purchasing power of your money is going downhill. Luckily food prices seem to no longer be considered in the CPI (or at least are covered by the lower prices of iPads), so our leaders detect "low inflation" which they intend to cure forthwith lest we remain stuck in the "recession".

      Then high food prices, caused by destruction of the free market via mandates, allocations, taxes, subsidies and general disbursement of free money will be used as a pretext for more interventions and subsidies.

      The ride never ends.

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Yippee....

      "...in a world of rising food prices, what we need is more agricultural land turned over to Biofuels."

      And yet, the very first paragraph of the article states "Western Australian farmers who have spent decades planting trees to try and combat salinity might get a payoff: providing jet fuel to Perth airport."

      So,NOT planting the trees means losing arable land too, probably more than the planting will do.

      There seems to to more to this than just a kneejerk reaction.

  7. Dramoth
    Pint

    Only one small problem... well two actually... some arseholes in Canberra who appear to be in the pay of big oil and big coal mining and really love fracking would never allow this to come about. They wouldnt get enough of a backhander from the guys producing the oil to make this feasible.

    Beer... because us Aussies need it right now...

    1. TopOnePercent

      Only one small problem... well two actually... some arseholes in Canberra who appear to be in the pay of big oil and big coal mining and really love fracking would never allow this to come about. They wouldnt get enough of a backhander from the guys producing the oil to make this feasible.

      I quite agree, however, it would be nice to have the tech banked so it can be wheeled out when the "arseholes in Canberra" run out of other options. Sure, it won't be as mature as it could have been, but the decades following peak oil (again, *IF* we ever get there) would allow time to season the processes and preserve the travel opportunities people now rely upon.

      Though I have to confess, I'd like to see fracking further developed as a technology, mostly because it would allow the UK a measure of energy independance should war or politics turn off the supply taps.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Nah.

      Your big problem will be the ecomentalists. They don't want a solution that gets rid of carbon emissions or something that stops people using fossil fuels. They want people to stop flying.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Nah.

        So if they have family across the ocean, they propose to just leave them to their fate and never visit them (because ANY form of transport to meet them will be fuel intensive, be it ship or plane)?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Nah.

          No, no, no. That's not how they work. They don't want YOU to fly.

          They have to fly so that they can go skiing or trekking across the Andes or highlighting the desperate plight of the Western Madagascan Cannibal Olive Tree or their son Toby or daughter Jocasta can go and find themselves by backpacking around the world.

          But you can't, because it's bad for the planet.

  8. Scroticus Canis
    Unhappy

    But, but.... Won't anybody think of the koalas?

    So they are going to nick the eucalyptuses and cause starvation of all those cute little antipodean bouncy bears? The heartless bastards!

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: But, but.... Won't anybody think of the koalas?

      Apparently it's thier own fault for choosing to evolve into a single-item diet animal (see also McBugger).

    2. Tim99 Silver badge

      Re: But, but.... Won't anybody think of the koalas?

      No worries. The mallee used is from Western Australia, we don't have native Koalas. It seems that the population did originally extend to WA, but it seems they may have been hunted to extinction by humans tens of thousands of years ago, when the climate started to become dry.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: But, but.... Won't anybody think of the koalas?

        "No worries. The mallee used is from Western Australia, we don't have native Koalas. It seems that the population did originally extend to WA, but it seems they may have been hunted to extinction by humans tens of thousands of years ago, when the climate started to become dry."

        Really?

        So Koala farming for burgers?

  9. umacf24

    Scale

    Without a figure for moles of carbon atoms (or tonnes of alkanes or whatever) per hectare per year, this story is effectively worthless.

    Forestry can be good for agriculture, so that might well make sense, but the oil would be a byproduct, and a small one. Once you include the diesel to get the logs to the processor (and observe that the plantations are deliberately dispersed, increasing the shipping costs) you might not even be breaking even in carbon terms.

    Eucalypts grow fast but not that fast, and biology isn't that efficient. If you want solar energy and you can spare the land, use solar cells and make fuel (like ammonia, say) directly, or use the yield to displace fuel consumption from something like desalination that can handle variable supply.

    Better still, stop messing around, use forestry to manage farmland efficiently (where that's required) and get energy, at the true scale we need, from nukes.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: use solar cells

      Luvverly, luvverly chemical processes and all the other stuff needed like plastics, metals, acids and one hell of a lot of energy.

      for once there is a fairly reasonable alternative that does grow on trees.

    2. TopOnePercent

      Re: Scale

      If you want solar energy and you can spare the land, use solar cells and make fuel (like ammonia, say) directly

      Ammonia has only half the calorific value of kerosene, so can't be used for flight. It could be used for other transport though and is definately a good technology to have.

      I agree, solar (in the right locations), nukes, tidal, and natural gas from biomass degredation could all form part of an internationally cohesive energy policy. Its just that none of them, bar nukes, can fly a plane, and nobody wants a nuclear reactor flying over their house.

      Due to policies like the CAP, vast percentages of European farmland lie forever dormant. Quite clearly we could grow significantly more crops for fuel than we do now. Vegetation may not be able match current jet fuel requirements, but it doesn't have too. Flying will become more efficient, and it could always become more expensive too in order to trim back demand, such that one day we may be able to pass peak oil without suffering devastating impacts on our quality of life.

      There's no one magic bullet that's waiting to take over from oil, but eucalyptus based jet fuel would be another few rounds tucked away in the armoury to help fuel the future.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Scale

        "it could always become more expensive too in order to trim back demand"

        Increasing the retail cost doesn't trim back demand, it trims back accessibility. Those less well off might still feel the demand for the product they once enjoyed but now they can't afford it.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Scale

      You forgot that this is supposed to cut down on the amount of plant food being produced by the engines so it will ultimately be self defeating - something the green wash never mentions.

    4. A Dawson

      Re: Scale

      Logs .. the logs hardly contain any oil (although you could harvest that for chipping and MDF). The canopy is where the oil is and can be harvested after about 5 years (without ripping up the tree which still acts to keep the water table low enough to reduce the salinity of the topsoil and reduce wind erosion) Collection and yield of usable fuel even after transport etc is estimated at around 2:1 (the energy density is around 3+ times that of corn there is a few papers around if I could bother to look for it). The Mallee is native to the region and can withstand the extremes of the climate (the wheatbelt gets progressively more arid heading east) and requires little encouragement to grow in that environment as opposed to the foodcrops which can only be grown half of the year (very little permanent water and very seasonal rain). Solar is fine but you have huge initial capital and significant maintenance and replacement costs especially dispersed over an area a bit bigger than England. Anyway getting to the TL;DR stage now.

  10. Squander Two

    Ah, public-sector finance.

    > Paradoxically, Australia's science agency CSIRO, a member of the CRC, is now considering slashing its alternative fuel programs to try and cope with swingeing cuts from the new Australian federal government. The agency has had its funding cut by $AU110 million in the May federal budget, about one-quarter of what it received in royalties from just one project, its contribution to WiFi standards in the 1990s.

    So they're making more than $440m more than they used to, receiving $110m less from the government than they used to, and manage to interpret that as a net loss so severe they have to axe entire projects?

    It's possible there's some detail that El Reg have neglected to include in this little summary. It's also possible that agencies in receipt of state funding have some strange ideas about money.

    1. Dramoth

      Re: Ah, public-sector finance.

      The fact that el reg has neglected to mention is that Australia is currently in the hands of a far right hard core religious wack job who thinks that Australia is for real Australians and anyone who wants to go there should just think about going somewhere else...

      I mean how can this righteous Australian (born in London) be the prime minister of Australia and be wrong... after all, he has God on his side. Dont know for how long... but he has the almighty guiding his trimming knife so that he can remove all those horrible scientific thingies that tell people that God is a figment of his imagination

  11. Martin Budden Silver badge

    displacement IS an issue

    As much as I love the idea of growing trees for jet fuel (I really really do, honest) I don't buy their claim that "displacement isn't an issue" because they specifically say they will be growing the trees on land which would otherwise be growing wheat. That's the definition of displacement right there. Doublespeak!

  12. dncnvncd

    Plants, Oils and Politics

    There are many plants and trees that grow on land not suitable for food production that produce a variety of oils. Before WWII many natural substances were used in paints and other commercial and industrial products. Ironically. at the end of WWII and the embargoes of natural products, the petrochemical and synthetics came of age and with political help replaced many natural products. The ethanol and biogas from sewage are two prime examples. Ethanol can be produced from any starchy substance, yet the main emphasis is on corn which requires fertilizer and pesticide inputs derived from petrochemicals. Being an annual, rather than a perennial, corn needs the same or greater inputs each year. There are several good methane generating plant designs that use bacteria that produce natural antibiotics while producing methane from waste. We have the knowledge but not the will. There are economically viable processes that need no government assistance. It seems the government is only interested in backing those projects destined for failure due to mismanagement or faulty concepts.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

    That is exactly what we do whenever we ignore crude oil and fission. We have plenty of both and all the other stuff has proven to be less than workable. Electrictiy from wind and solar, pick your favourite solar, are complete duds without a way to store large quantities of electricity. Both are too intermittent to supply our needs for a steady load on the grid without such storage. Schemes to take advantage of waves and currents have their on impacts on the environment that are far more serious than any thing fission plants can do.

    There are many complicated explanations of thermodynamics, but they can be simplified so that anyone can readily understand the three basic rules. Rule one: You can't win. Rule two: You must pay for what you get. Rule three: You will never get what you pay for. Corollary: When in doubt, check the first rule.

    I know that this is hard news for many of you, but you must realize that this is what we are up against. Nature is as implacable as your mother-in-law and at least as pitiless. There are no "alternative energies." There is only energy and we must have it or millions upon millions of us will die.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

      I thought the three rules of thermodynamics were (1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. and (3) You can't quit.

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