Alternative Flight Fuel

Wired reports: Pentagon officials have been talking for years about weaning their jets off of fossil fuels. Now they say they’re only months away from producing a cheap fuel made from algae—for less than $3 a gallon.

In addition to the Pentagon, several airlines have been publicizing efforts to produce alternatives to jet fuel. But other than a few publicity efforts, there has been very little said by anybody flying jets regarding a timeline for production.

Much of the tremendous fuel the military burns each year is used up by the Air Force and Navy’s thirsty jets. Barbara McQuiston of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) told the Guardian, research projects have already produced fuel from algae at a cost of $2 a gallon. She said a large-scale-production operation would come on line in 2011. The facility would be able to produce 50 million gallons a year, and the costs would be competitive with traditional, petroleum-based fuels.

The Pentagon has big plans for biofuels—including a green strike group, with bio-powered F/A-18s flying off of the aircraft carrier's deck. But, right now, there’s no company that can produce the stuff cheaply enough or in great enough quantities. Perhaps this Darpa effort will fix that.

Algae-based fuels have been touted as a good alternative to the use of food stock for renewable fuels. Recently the EPA said algae-based fuels also reduce CO₂ omissions over the production life cycle of the fuel.