BRAZIL:
Biofuel Revolution
Reaches Airline Industry
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE
JANEIRO,(Tierramérica) -
Biokerosene has the
potential to take off on
the international market
faster than other
alternative fuels, even
though it is among the
newest and faces
stricter quality
standards because it is
to be used in aviation.
Airplanes have a useful
lifespan of 30 to 40
years, and their
manufacturers want to
ensure they have fuel
until the end, chemical
engineer Expedito
Parente explains to
Tierramérica. Three
decades ago, he invented
biodiesel and
biokerosene, both
refined from oleaginous
crops.
Before today's
fuel-hungry airplanes
are ready to be scrapped
decades from now,
petroleum-based fuel
could disappear or cost
too much to make flying
economically feasible,
Parente says. Investment
therefore is needed to
develop, perfect and
produce plant-based
kerosene, fomented also
by pressure to mitigate
climate change.
The boom in fuels made
from maize, sugarcane,
palms and soybeans,
among other plants, is
in part due to the fact
that they emit less
greenhouse-effect gas
than petroleum
derivatives, and to the
fact that the latter are
in increasingly shorter
supply.
Bio-jet fuel is being
tested "throughout the
air transport chain,
including in the
manufacturing of planes,
turbines and
accessories, and the
network of aeronautical
fuel distribution," says
Parente. In two years it
should be confirmed as a
valid alternative to
kerosene from petroleum,
he predicts.
The process involves
"the entire interested
universe," Parente
stresses, although he
avoids naming the
U.S.-based Boeing, the
world's largest aircraft
manufacturer, which
signed a cooperation
agreement with Tecbio,
the company that Parente
founded in 2001 to
promote his projects.
"The initial agreement
was expanded to the rest
of the actors," he says.
It is a vision that the
scientist and
entrepreneur explains
with the didactic
approach of a university
professor faced with the
question about the
commercial future of
biokerosene and the
possibility that it
might run into
protectionist barriers,
like those that affect
Brazilian ethanol in
industrialised
countries.
Ethanol "has its own
world, that of
individual transport, of
small engines";
biodiesel is aimed at
"collective
transportation, large
engines and vehicles
like trucks, buses,
tractors, trains and
ships," and both are
different from
biokerosene because they
are for land and water
transportation, Parente
said.
Unlike biodiesel, which
is intended for local
consumption, making use
of available raw
materials, biokerosene
for aviation "has to be
international, shared",
and free from national
protectionisms. It
requires networking, as
is being done with the
tests, says the expert.
This cooperative
approach also helps in
speeding up its
development.
Furthermore, aviation
does not have the
alternative of an
electric motor like
those for land vehicles,
which forces the
concentration of efforts
on bio-jet fuels, he
adds.
Parente patented his two
fuel inventions in 1980.
But, because a long
period went by without
their being used, the
patents ran out, and
biodiesel and
biokerosene became
public domain.
Now they are gaining
strength due to the
threat of climate
change. In Brazil,
biodiesel will only be
required to be mixed
with petroleum diesel,
beginning in January, at
a proportion of two
percent. This is three
years behind Europe's
advances in this area.
Parente began to
dedicate himself to
biofuels in the late
1970s, as a professor at
the Federal University
of Ceará, in Brazil's
Northeast, far from the
country's big cities and
dynamic centres. His
dream was frustrated by
lack of government
interest in the
production of biofuel,
including biokerosene,
which was tested in 1983
with a successful flight
of about 1,000
kilometres in a
Brazilian-made aircraft.
At the time "there was
mental myopia," says
Parente, who now fears
"an astigmatism" that
distorts the vision of
biofuels. Energy coming
from biomass is
different from that of
petroleum because it
constitutes a different
paradigm and because it
achieves three missions,
he teaches in his
lectures.
In addition to the
environment, biofuel has
a social mission,
because it should
improve rural living
conditions, "valuing the
human being"; and
strategic, preparing the
way for the "solar era",
which he predicts will
succeed the petroleum
era.
At 67, Parente has
rekindled his
enthusiasm, announcing
the May 2008
inauguration of the
first "semi-industrial"
plant for refining oil
from the babaçú palm (Orbignya
phalerata martins),
abundant across 18
million hectares in the
Northeast and the
eastern Amazon, and the
opening of a landmark
biokerosene research
centre.
Strong production is
essential, because a jet
airplane needs at least
10,000 litres of fuel to
take off, he says.
Lauric oil, produced by
palms, is the raw
material of his
plant-based jet fuel.
"There is another
alternative source," but
still requires much
study and is "a secret
to be kept for now," he
adds.
The aeronautics industry
is faced with a unique
situation --
environmental pressures
and the "end of
petroleum" -- which
requires strong
investment in biofuels,
the only alternative
that seems viable,
according to Delcio
Rodrigues, energy expert
with Vitae Civilis, a
non-governmental
organisation that is
active on the climate
change problem.
Air transport is a
fast-growing industry
and is the target of
numerous reports on
greenhouse gas
emissions. But replacing
fossil-fuel kerosene is
difficult, because
airplanes need fuels "of
great energy intensity"
to be able to travel
long distances without
increasing the weight
being transported,
Rodrigues explained to
Tierramérica.
Alternatives like the
ethanol now being used
in cars won't work,
because it has a higher
consumption rate by
volume than gasoline, he
said.
But in Brazil, the
agricultural airplane,
the Ipanema, does fly on
fuel alcohol. The model
created by Embraer, the
national aeronautics
company and one of the
leading manufacturers of
light and medium
aircraft, was the first
certified to consume
ethanol, in 2004. But
the crop-duster plane is
small and does not
travel the long
distances that
commercial flights do.
(*Originally published
by Latin American
newspapers that are part
of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is
a specialised news
service produced by IPS
with the backing of the
United Nations
Development Programme
and the United Nations
Environment Programme.) |
