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Airliner Completes Transoceanic Flight Using Green Fuel Sourced from Vegetable Oil
915 million tons of carbon were produced by the commercial aviation industry in 2019, but the industry is working to make that number smaller. In fact, many major players have a target of halving their emissions by 2050 in comparison to 2005. Reducing aviation-related carbon emissions is no easy task though, but one path to sustainability might be more sustainable fuel. (interestingengineering.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
You are correct. Burning a biofuel does result in CO2, SOX, although the sulfur content of biofuels will be lower. You'll also get NOXs since we can't get rid of that pesky nitrogen in the atmosphere. The point here is, rather than releasing carbon, as CO2 from ancient fossil fuels and increasing the global concentration of CO2, burning biofuels will, in theory operate as a net zero loop. Some plant absorbs CO2, uses it to sustain it's metabolism and growth, it gets harvested, converted into vegetable oil, then into biofuel, then combusted to produce CO2, water and heat. That process is not 100% efficient, and a lot of CO2 gets produced just in making the biofuel. The hope is the net release of CO2 will be significantly less than just burning fossil fuels. This is a demonstration, a start. We'll have to see where it leads.
Logically, this makes absolutely zero sense. Net CO2 = CO2 Produced - CO2 Consumed (by plants presumably). The source of the production is not relevant, whether fossil fuel or biofuel. Plants do not know or care where their CO2 comes from, fossil fuels or biofuels. The only way the variables mentioned can be tuned reduce CO2 is to 1) have more plants, or 2) reduce the production of C02 regardless of the source, or both.
Exhaust smells like french fries I'll bet. LOL
In addition to all the other objections raised, note that burning "bio-fuel" is still a combustion process that produces CO2. The article uses weasel language like "up to 80% less carbon ... based on a life-cycle analysis" that I can promise you is "up to 95%" bullshit.
I found this underwhelming since they only used 2.3% of vegetable based fuel. These titles make it seem like the entire thing was fueled on vege oil.
At 2.3% the biofuel seems to be on the level of a fuel contaminant.
Agree with canuck44, - This and similar stunts are merely tokenism, their main purpose is Virtue Signalling. No meaningful change to fuel composition.
I call bovine excrement on this...