BRICS and mortar: the fast-growing BRIC economies take aim at aviation biofuels

Brazil, Russia, India and China — and throw in South Africa for a complete BRICSA set.

The vaunted new economic engines for the 21st century — and, lately, home to a beehive of activity around drop-in, sustainable, aviation biofuels.

What’s up, with whom, where, when and why?

In the motion picture Casablanca, most of the protagonists wait (and wait) for tickets on the plane to Lisbon that will carry them to freedom and safety. “Waiting, waiting, waiting. I’ll never get out of here,” says one, wearily, “I’ll die in Casablanca.”

Followers of the saga of aviation biofuels might be forgiven for watching Casablanca with some degree of empathy — there’s always something bubbling in the sector — but where are the gallons?

Of late, the activity has been shifting towards the BRICSA nations, and it wasn’t entirely a surprise when Boeing launched an initiative with South African Airways and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) to expand opportunities for “smallholder” farmers in Southern Africa to grow crops that produce sustainable fuels.

The program builds on a global effort by Boeing, RSB and other partners to help farmers with small plots of land gain access to markets for sustainable biofuels and biomaterials. In the coming months, Boeing and RSB will work with Southern African stakeholders to create pilot programs to build knowledge and skills among groups of farmers who want to certify their crops as sustainable.

Over the long term, as Southern Africa gains capacity in this area, more farmers will be positioned to tap into demand for biofuel feedstocks that are certified to provide socio-economic value to communities without adverse impact to food supplies, fresh water or land use.

Where else in the BRICSA universe are the opportunities close — or even closer?

Brazil

Last November, Boeing and GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes said they will work together to speed the research, development and approval of new sources of sustainable aviation biofuel in Brazil. Their collaboration will support GOL’s plans to use this lower-carbon jet fuel on more flights during upcoming major sporting events and also will benefit long-term development of a new sustainable aviation biofuel industry in Brazil.

Paulo Sergio Kakinoff, chief executive officer of GOL, and Van Rex Gallard, vice president of Sales for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, signed a memorandum of understanding for biofuel collaboration at the Latin America and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) Airline Leaders Forum 2013.

A few weeks before that, Avianca Brasil selected the Byogy Renewables Alcohol to Jet = fully renewable aviation biofuel process to source their environment friendly alternate low carbon aviation fuels. Avianca has selected its Airbus A319, powered by CFMI (a partnership between General Electric and SNECMA of France) CFM56 engines, as the fleet member to be used with Byogy for advanced testing and data acquisition which will support the ATJ specification adoption process which is well under way with the global ASTM governing organization.

Russia

Last September, Airbus and RT-Biotechprom have signed an agreement to make aviation biofuel from Russian sources, planning to have results by the end of 2014. ‘This partnership will be a significant step in implementing our strategy of developing biotechnology in Russia, including deep processing of renewable biomass,’ RT-Biotechprom CEO Sergei Kraevoi was quoted as saying. ‘Airbus’s expertise in such projects will help us ensure that biofuels made of Russian raw materials meet all international standards.’ Airbus is also currently working with China, Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Australia.

India

Last November, Solena Fuels revealed discussions with city authorities in Chennai to use the city’s 5,000 tons of MSW per day to produce 120 million liters of aviation biofuel and 45 million liters of diesel per year. The facility would cost $450 million to build with an eight year ROI. Solena’s technology is syngas-based using plasma reactors to treat the feedstock.

Back in 2011, Virgin Atlantic teamed with LanzaTech to create renewable jet fuel that it had hoped would power planes from Shanghai and Delhi to Heathrow within two to three years. LanzaTech is working on producing its fuel in India and China, making those two destinations easy targets for implementation of the ‘green fleet.’

A flight demo with the new fuel is planned in the next 18 months, and the project will also include Boeing during the trial phases.

Within two to three years Virgin Atlantic plans flights with the new fuel on its routes from Shanghai and Delhi to London Heathrow as LanzaTech and partners develop facilities in China and India. criteria. Virgin Atlantic said that the time that it believed that this development will take the airline well beyond its pledge of a 30% carbon reduction per passenger km by 2020. The investment in renewable fuels is part of a wider program to reduce carbon through measures such as using new, more fuel-efficient aircraft and supporting a global carbon cap and trade scheme, through involvement in Aviation Global Deal group.

Towards that end, LanzaTech opened an office in India in 2012 to help partners IndianOil and Jindal Steel & Power set up an aviation fuels demonstration scale plant. In the arrangement, IndianOil would provide the facilities, Jindal will provide the industrial off-gases, and LanzaTech will be supplying the technology. A definitive plan for the demo plant is expected within a year and a half.

China

Last month, the Civil Aviation Administration of China granted Sinopec Chinese Technical Standard Order Authorization (CTSOA) for aviation biofuels, certifying that the fuel has met all required industry standards. An April 2013 test flight using hydrotreated palm oil and recycled cooking oil feedstock on an Airbus 320 owned by China Eastern Airlines was the test case for the certification. Sinopec said it will now work on expanding the feedstocks it uses to produce aviation biofuel.

Sinopec wants to produce commercial scale biofuels for airplanes and has sought permission to do so from the country’s national aviation regulator. The company expects it could produce a third of the national aviation fuel demand, 12 million metric tons, from biofuels by 2020.

Sinopec produces about three-quarters of fossil aviation fuel used in China annually. PetroChina plans to build a refinery for aviation biofuels by 2014 that would produce 60,000 tons annually.

A target feedstock in China? Gutter oil. Back in 2012, the International Business Times first reported that China’s “gutter oil” (a/k/a “waste cooking oil”) will soon be turned into renewable jet fuel for the global aviation industry by Dutch aviation fuel producer SkyNRG, a company originally affiliated with KLM but now supplying waste-oil derived renewable jet fuel to most of the world’s major airlines. The company’s business model uses pretreated European biofuels from used cooking oil as the feedstock and then uses additional processing to produce aviation-grade fuel.

Also on the horizon: the Middle East and Indonesia

This past January in the Emirates, Boeing, Etihad Airways, Takreer, Total, and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology announced a collaboration for sustainable aviation biofuels in the UAE.
The collaboration, BIOjet Abu Dhabi: Flight Path to Sustainability, will develop a comprehensive framework for a UAE biofuel supply chain, which is already in motion. Etihad Airways recently completed a 45-minute demonstration flight in a Boeing 777 powered partially by biofuel converted from plants by Total, and refined into jet fuel by Takreer, together representing UAE-produced sustainable aviation biofuel.

The BIOjet Abu Dhabi initiative will focus on research and development and investments in feedstocks production and refining capability in the UAE and globally. Boeing and Etihad Airways have previously collaborated as the founding partners of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium, which has been researching and developing salt-tolerant plants.

In Indonesia, the transport and energy ministries signed an agreement last December to begin planning the implementation of aviation biofuel supply to the country’s airport. The planning and implementation stage is set for 2014-16. Already the country’s has planned for 3% aviation biofuel use by 2020.

The Bottom Line

The complexity of distributing road transport fuels in emerging economies — combined with the large size of the BRIC nations and the internal airline networks they support — well, it’s a safe prediction that aviation is by far the preferred route to market for drop-in, sustainable biofuels.

So far — it’s been slow going on capacity building. Been a lot more MOUrtar than mortar, if you will. We expect the stream of paper to shift to a stream of fuel over the next two years — but it is likely that Brazil and China will lead the way among the BRICs.