As part of an EU-backed push to cut carbon emissions from flying, a laboratory to grow algae for jet fuel has opened in Istanbul this month.
The demonstration project, which is valued at €6m ($6.8m), is funded by the European Union and the Turkish government and is expected to grow simple water-based plants, known as algae, in outdoor ponds and indoor tubes, and refine them into fuel and other products.
After he toured the site on Boğaziçi University’s campus, Turkish energy and natural resources minister Mustafa Varank said that the work is underway for the use of biofuels produced here by Turkish Airlines.
“We want them to carry out [their] first flight using biofuel from here before the end of 2022,” he said.
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Although experts who spoke to newsmen said that biofuel from algae has the potential, they were doubtful that it could be produced on a scale to break aviation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
The aviation director of the International Council on Clean Transportation, Dan Rutherford said that Algae jet fuel is like adisco and that it comes back every decade or so but in a worse form.
“The US government has been picking at this for at least 30 years and has never figured it out.”
Recall that In 2011, a plane flew from Houston to Chicago powered by fuel which was 40% algae-based and 60% petroleum. Solazyme, the San Francisco-based company which developed the fuel, filed for bankruptcy in 2017.
