From oil fields to swamps

Aviation turns to living organisms for its future energy source.

All the metaphorical reams of data collected during the last several years of flight tests, aimed at proving certain biofuels as drop-in replacement for Jet A (commercial) or JP-5/8 (military), have reached a critical mass where enough knowledge about how biofuels react in all ranges of the flight envelope now exists for a biofuels standard to be established within a year. Once established, such a standard will clear the way for the scaling of biofuel production from pilot plants to commercial quantities.

“We're getting an unprecedented amount of lab, ground, and flight-test results spawned from the flight demonstration work that's been done and are compiling that into a research report for ASTM International to consider for a new fuel spec associated with biofuels,” said Billy Glover, Managing Director of Environmental Strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ASTM developed and maintains the standard for one of the two major fuel specifications used in aviation worldwide.