Biofuels May Be Viable In 10 Years

By Jennifer Michels

Scott Carson, president and CEO of of Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes unit, believes the future of the industry lies in biofuels, and their benefits may be seen sooner than some would think.

In his keynote address to the FAA Forecast Conference in Washington yesterday, Carson said promising research is coming from alternative fuels using plants that do not compete with food crops, such as camelina and jatropha. And although testing is in a “very early stage,” he said a camelina supplier just informed him a few days ago that it was planting thousands of more acres in Montana and South Dakota because of the successful trials by Japan Airlines. JAL on Jan. 30 tested a Pratt & Whitney-powered 747-300 that mixed three biofuel feedstocks, which was the first to feature the grain camelina.

Carson later told The DAILY that interest must be stimulated now in these fuels draw investors. And although the conventional wisdom is that biofuel will not be commercially viable until about 2025, Carson said, “To those people I say you are slow, and you are lazy.” He does not see why it cannot be commercially viable in 10 years.

Carson also does not understand what is taking the government so long to move on NextGen. With current traffic demand predictions requiring 25,000 to 30,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years, the ATC system will be even more constrained, he said. “We need a NextGen organization” that has the right leadership and performance metrics to follow, he said. This must include controllers for more effective implementation. The steps the industry can take now with minimal investment is a tailored arrival process, which also will decrease fuel consumption, he said, implementation of RNP in all terminal areas, and GPS landing systems at the largest airports. “What are we waiting for?”

Photo: Benet Wilson