I'm all for trying new things, but this is just asinine. The infrastructure to make enough volume of a source of some sort of vegetable oil and then turn it into whatever form of biodiesel that would function as jet fuel would require so much more energy and produce so much more impact than whatever tiny nothing you'd gain in reducing "greenhouse emissions".
Unless Exxon or someone else can figure out that algae based fuel, bio fuels are a non-starter. Anything produced at scale will require an unfathomable amount of corn or other sugar source. Farming that stuff and moving the product is a very energy intensive process. Refining it is also energy intensive. Then there’s the inconvenient fact that bio fuels are less energy dense than petrochemical fuels so you need to burn 10-20% more to release the same amount of energy. I’d be shocked if this sort of system didn’t produce at least 10% higher emissions than traditional hydrocarbon sources.
I'm all for trying new things, but this is just asinine. The infrastructure to make enough volume of a source of some sort of vegetable oil and then turn it into whatever form of biodiesel that would function as jet fuel would require so much more energy and produce so much more impact than whatever tiny nothing you'd gain in reducing "greenhouse emissions".
Unless Exxon or someone else can figure out that algae based fuel, bio fuels are a non-starter. Anything produced at scale will require an unfathomable amount of corn or other sugar source. Farming that stuff and moving the product is a very energy intensive process. Refining it is also energy intensive. Then there’s the inconvenient fact that bio fuels are less energy dense than petrochemical fuels so you need to burn 10-20% more to release the same amount of energy. I’d be shocked if this sort of system didn’t produce at least 10% higher emissions than traditional hydrocarbon sources.
That’s the point. China will force their African plantations to mass produce the corn, making US rely on China further.