BioJet 1: Biodiesel Takes Flight

[Ivan Seeking]

Biodiesel may not become the airplane fuel of the future but it did prove effective enough to recently power a 1968 L-29 Czechoslovakian jet—dubbed BioJet 1—up to 17,000 feet (5,180 meters) over 37 minutes. A three minute, 15-second test the day before was the world's first flight entirely fueled by cooking oil.

"She flew and she flew just fine," says physicist Rudi Wiedemann, president and CEO of Biodiesel Solutions, Inc., whose company provided the fuel for the historic October flight: fresh canola oil refined into biodiesel. "We wanted to show that it was doable by just going out and doing it." [continued]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=biodiesel-takes-to-the-sky

Actually, biodiesel is getting great attention wrt aviation because of its high energy density - almost as good as regular diesel.

Boeing and Virgin recently partnered in an effort to develop alternative fuels for aviation.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=140037

 

[wolram]

More land for fuel rather than food, i think food is more important than air travel.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

More land for fuel rather than food, i think food is more important than air travel.

Biodiesel from algae doesn't need to compete with food. It does not require good farmland in order to grow.

Where I live, if we converted just the land used to grow grass seed [which is used mainly for golf courses] to fuel production, we should be able to produce something like 2.5 billion gallons of fuel per year.

Also, for anyone who hasn't seen it, you should enjoy the biodiesel powered, Earthrace Wavepiercer Trimaran.
http://www.cld.co.nz/earthrace.htm

 

[wolram]

Biodiesel from algae doesn't need to compete with food. It does not require good farmland in order to grow.

Where I live, if we converted just the land used to grow grass seed [which is used mainly for golf courses] to fuel production, we should be able to produce something like 2.5 billion gallons of fuel per year.

Also, for anyone who hasn't seen it, you should enjoy the biodiesel powered, Earthrace Wavepiercer Trimaran.
http://www.cld.co.nz/earthrace.htm

I am all ready a great believer in algae fuel and geothermal, anyone working in these areas get my backing.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You can send your checks to Ivan Seeking at...

The red blotches on my avatar are the pockets of oil within microalgae. The algae are probably around 10 microns in size.