Novel Intel: Salty Jet Fuel
The MIT Technology Review reports on a project gearing up in the United Arab Emirates, which aims to grow dedicated energy crops for renewable jet fuel in the desert using seawater.
The proposed project will combine fish and shrimp farming with the cultivation of mangroves and salicornia, a plant with oil-rich seeds that can be converted into fuel. The project will be led by the Masdar Institute, which is part of a zero-emissions city being built in Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate in the UAE. Boeing, Etihad Airways (the national airline of the UAE), and UOP Honeywell, which will supply technology for converting the biomass to chemical precursors and fuels, will partner with the Masdar Institute.
If the proposal sounds ambitious, that’s because it is. But ambition has been the UAE’s and airline industry’s M.O. lately.
As Biomass Intel reported last month, airlines are aggressively seeking sustainable non-food crops to reduce their dependence on traditional petroleum supplies. The airline industry is particularly prone to price volatility in oil markets (fuel expenses shot up from a historical average of 10 to 15 percent of US passenger airline operating costs to 35 percent in the third quarter of 2008). With limited biofuel supplies to replace petroleum supplies, the airline industry is likely to play second fiddle to the ground transportation industry. The result: airlines are shooting for the moon and banking their future on jatropha, camelina, algae, and seawater fed energy crops. And these aren’t long-term plays; airlines are seeking near-term results.
MIT’s Technology Review explains how the farm will work:
It begins with digging a canal from the sea. That canal delivers water to several stages in the system. First, the researchers pump saltwater into ponds or flow it past cages used for growing shrimp or fish. Ordinarily, such aquaculture is an “environmental disaster,” Kennedy says. The runoff contains large amounts of feces that can cause dangerous algae blooms, for example. But in the Masdar system, the researchers will use that effluent downstream to fertilize salicornia.
The salicornia is grown in saltwater-irrigated fields, and can be harvested like other crops, such as wheat or rice. The runoff from that irrigation, now saltier and still containing some effluent from the fish and shrimp, together with more water from the canal, is next fed to a stretch of planted mangrove trees, which can grow in that saltier water. The mangrove forest provides a barrier, so that none of the polluted water from the fish farm returns to the ocean. The leaves can also be used as food for the fish.
For more information, read here.
