Jet Plains, Part II: Doers, Done, and the DOE in renewable jet fuel

Elsewhere in today’s Digest, comments from Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson and the DOE’s Valerie Reed confirm an increasingly laser-like focus on renewable aviation fuels from the advanced biofuels community. Here are some developments in renewable, drop-in aviation fuels from biomass also highly worth noting.

US Air Force
The Air Force has announced that it will construct a $2.5 million Assured Aerospace Fuels Research Facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, also home to the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The facility is expected to be completed in summer 2010, and according to a report in Daily Tech, “It is expected to develop around 15 to 25 gallons of research jet fuel composed of coal, biofuels, and other gas alternatives every day.”

Dynamic Fuels

One of the fuels under study at Wright-Patterson is Dynamic Fuels — the joint venture of Tyson and Syntroleum, which will commence producing 75 Mgy of renewable diesel, and renewable jet fuel, based on the company’s R-8 platform, produced from animal fats and vegetable oil s by the company’s Bio-Synfining process. The Air Force Research Laboratory recently tested 600 gal of R-8 for short. According to a report from Wright-Patterson, “initial physical property and T63 engine testing indicates R-8’s performance as indistinguishable from that of S-8, Syntroleum’s Fischer-Tropsch synthetic jet fuel that first flew in 2006 aboard the B-52. Additional tests of R-8 are underway, with the product also entering the first stages of the MIL-HDBK-510 Alternative Fuel Certification Process.”

More on Dynamic Fuels and the USAF: a downloadable USAF presentation on the USAF Energy Program.

Rentech
Rentech is producing synthetic jet fuel and renewable diesel at its demonstration plant in Commerce City, Colorado. This facility currently produces Jet A fuel for commercial aviation and it is also sold to the U.S Air Force, a deal that was the company’s first commercial sale. This facility also produces Rentech’s clean diesel or Rendiesel which will be produced in commercial scale at the Rialto Project.

The Rialto (CA) Project will take urban yard and woody green waste to produce ultra clean and renewable fuels. It is estimated that Rialto will produce 600 barrels per day of synthetic fuel as well as 35 megawatts of renewable power. The Rialto project is currently completing all feasibility studies and will complete front-end engineering and design in 2010. Estimated completed construction and start up is expected in 2012.

How does Rentech fund its clean energy projects? Its operating cash flow comes from Rentech’s Energy Midwest Corporation or REMC located in Illinois. This is the underlying economic base that supports commercialization of Rentech’s other projects. This facility produces 600,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer products that are sold to Midwest markets.

Next week: Jet Plains, Part III: Inside looks at some serious industrial biotech at Sapphire Energy

Next week, “Jet Plains, part III” will appear on Tuesday, with a special look at Sapphire Energy, including exclusive video from the company’s research labs in San Diego, where the company is ploughing through an astonishing 8,000 algal strains per day in its R&D, moving the top-performing strains to its facility now well advanced on its construction in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sapphire provided algal oils used for renewable jet fuel in the JAL and Continental test flights conducted last year.

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