First ‘green diesel’ powered flight A Boeing aircraft has completed the world’s first flight using ‘green diesel’, a sustainable biofuel made from vegetable oils, waste cooking oil and animal fats. 1. Sustainable green diesel is widely available and used in ground transportation. Boeing previously found that this fuel is chemically similar to HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) aviation biofuel approved in 2011. 2. Green diesel is chemically distinct and a different fuel product than “biodiesel,” which also is used in ground transportation. Green Diesel/Renewable Diesel: Renewable Diesel, often called “green diesel” or “second generation diesel,” refers to petrodiesel-like fuels derived from biological sources that are chemically not esters. Renewable diesel is chemically the same as petrodiesel, but it is made of recently living biomass. 1. Unlike biodiesel, which is an ester and has different chemical properties from petroleum diesel, green diesel is composed of long-chain hydrocarbons, and can be mixed with petroleum diesel in any proportion for use as transportation fuel. 2. Green diesel technology is frequently referred to as second-generation renewable diesel technology. Petrodiesel is a product produced through the fractional distillation of crude oil. The petrodiesel molecule is a pure hydrocarbon, containing only hydrogen and carbon atoms and no oxygen. Benefits of green diesel: 1. Green diesel can be used in any diesel engine without modification. Other fractions can be used to run aircraft engines. 2. Green diesel produced from BTL (biomass to liquids) or WTL (waste to liquids) doesn’t smell like fossil diesel. In fact it has a pleasant kind of soap smell. 3. In cold climates green diesel has a great advantage over bio-diesel. It doesn’t cloud or gel until much lower temperatures (-40C) making it ideal for cool climates. 4. Because it has exactly the same chemical properties as fossil based diesel, it can be blended with regular diesel, stored and distributed using the same infrastructure. 5. Although chemically identical to fossil diesel, it has a higher cetane rating and on a gallon for gallon basis contains 22% more energy. 6. On a lifecycle basis, sustainably produced green diesel reduces carbon emissions by 50 to 90 per cent compared to fossil fuel. 7. Green diesel offers a tremendous opportunity to make sustainable aviation biofuel more available and more affordable for customers. With production capacity of 800 million gallons (three billion litres) in the U.S., Europe and Asia, green diesel could rapidly supply as much as one per cent of global jet fuel demand.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 06:37:25 +0000
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