The federal government is looking at the potential of producing jet biofuels, in light of an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry.<\/p>\n
Natural Resources Canada is looking for a company to design a \u201croadmap\u201d for the development of a domestic aviation biofuel industry, according to a procurement document recently posted online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe potential for Canada is not only in production of a cleaner biojet fuels (sic) but also in the development of new technologies than (sic) can be exported,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n
The document notes that Canada imports 40 per cent of its jet fuel consumption.<\/p>\n
In October 2016, the government signed onto an international agreement to make the airline industry carbon-neutral by 2020. Canada also aims to cut aviation emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2050.<\/p>\n
Biofuels are about the only way to meet that target, says Geoffrey Tauvette, director of fuel and environment at WestJet, since there are no electric planes on the way anytime soon. \u201cI think it\u2019s great that (the government has) heard our message that for aviation, we really have no other choice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Traditional biofuels such as ethanol don\u2019t work in airplanes because of their low energy density and the fact that they freeze at low temperatures, said Jack Saddler, a professor of bioenergy at the University of British Columbia. Instead, most jet biofuel comes from forest biomass and food waste, like used cooking oil.<\/p>\n
The federal government seems keen on the possibility of producing biofuel from forestry scraps, including branches and bark. \u201cThere is strong interest from airlines and forest industry stakeholders in exploring the possibilities of producing biojet from forest biomass, in particular from industrial residues,\u201d a department spokesperson told the Post in an email.<\/p>\n
Jet biofuel is only just entering the commercial market. Saddler pointed to AltAir Fuels, a California-based refiner, and Neste Oil, a Finnish company with refineries in Rotterdam and Singapore, as some of the main suppliers. Some airlines are beginning to mix biojet into their fuel, he said, but only in small quantities. \u201cI think that\u2019s a kind of way to show everybody it\u2019s safe,\u201d he said. Other airlines, including Air Canada, have only conducted flight tests using biofuel.<\/p>\n
But airlines looking to use renewable fuel face a number of hurdles, including limited supply. The fuel is expensive relative to conventional jet fuel, Saddler said. \u201cWe live in a good old capitalist society, so there\u2019s not really the economic benefit to do it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saddler said a domestic jet biofuel industry would likely require government subsidy. \u201cAnything new usually does, because you\u2019re trying to displace something,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will need to be some sort of policy driver to establish it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the government is looking for a study of feedstock volumes required to support a jet biofuel industry in Canada, existing and emerging technologies in the field and policies that would support the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of steps to get there, but I think we have the right ingredients to make it work,\u201d Tauvette said.<\/p>\n
Saddler said he hopes the government will approach his research team at the University of British Columbia, which has been studying aviation biofuel for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve kind of come late to the party,\u201d he said, adding that he attended a recent meeting with the department where the roadmap was discussed. \u201cOur sense was that we hope these guys get up to speed fast. We kind of missed them for the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The federal government is looking at the potential of producing jet biofuels, in light of an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry. Natural Resources Canada is looking for a company to design a \u201croadmap\u201d for the development of a domestic aviation biofuel industry, according to a procurement document recently posted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[13202,5818],"supplier":[11090,1846,1847,550,1843,11107],"class_list":["post-46653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-aviation","tag-biofuel","supplier-air-canada","supplier-government-of-canada","supplier-natural-resources-canada","supplier-neste-oil","supplier-university-of-british-columbia","supplier-westjet-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46653"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=46653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}