The Oil Drum

134 comments on DrumBeat: February 11, 2008

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goghgoner on February 11, 2008 - 8:47am

Seems to me like the airline industry is in serious trouble. Emphasis added to their worries about the lead market -- uh, what about the oil market?

Green fuel, sky-blue dreams

Stirm said the aviation industry has sought an unleaded fuel, but no one has been able to create one that had an octane rating high enough to maintain power.

"There's been a frustration in the industry to come up with a substitute," Stirm said. "What are we going to use to power our airplanes if something happens to the lead market?"

Octane is a scale of how fast fuel burns, Stirm said. The higher the octane rating, the longer it burns and the more energy you get. Lead slows the burning of gasoline, so you can get more power out of it. Stirm said the FAA twice has received permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to keep using leaded fuel, but that extension expires in 2010.

"It's how you use that energy in the engine," he said. "In aviation, the issue has always been power- to-weight ratio. Here we're talking about a fuel that would revolutionize not only the aviation business, but also all our other modes of transportation."
Other solutions to the leaded gas problem have included ethanol, but the Ruseks said the biofuel isn't efficient as a combustible -- and could freeze at high altitudes.

John Rusek said ethanol, when burned in an engine, uses 17 percent of its energy; by comparison, an ethanol fuel cell uses 76 percent of available energy.

E85 gasoline -- the kind many cars and trucks now can burn -- is less efficient, cutting mileage by about 25 percent. "In an airplane, you can't afford to lose 25 percent of your range," he said.