Mass production of biofuels for aviation is less cost-effective compared to the production of aviation kerosene from oil. Therefore, without the introduction of a carbon tax, it is not able to compete with traditional jet fuel, said Jay D. Kiesling, professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, deputy director of the Biological Sciences Laboratory at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, chief Executive Officer of the Joint Institute for Bioenergy, in an interview with Global Energy.
A similar opinion was expressed by Dmitry Los, Director of the Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Another equally important issue is the compliance of jet biofuels with strict technical standards.
D. Los added that another problem of biofuel production may be its high energy consumption.
Biofuels can be produced from completely different sources of biomass. According to J. D. Kisling, the best fuel can be produced from plant components, such as sugars. It will be the most carbon-neutral.
D. Los believes that the production of biofuels from seaweed will be more efficient, as this will solve the problem of lack of land or irrigation resources in the mass transition to biofuels instead of fossil fuels.
In addition, the problem of lack of resources can be solved through the use of organic waste in the productionof biofuels, he added.Kisling.
D. Los, in turn, noted that the development of biofuel production will just go along the path of reducing the use of areas for sowing agricultural plants to produce biofuels, the predominant use of controlled photobioreactors and microalgae instead of plants.
Meanwhile, last week, the American aerospace corporation Boeing said that by 2030 it will start producing aircraft for regular flights, capable of flying on one hundred percent biofuel.
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