Tuesday Travels: Eco-friendlier Skies with Coal?
I love to travel and always have so whenever there’s news about air travel getting greener I’m all over it with glimmering hope in my eyes. The latest news that a Princeton professor is developing jet fuels with “near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions” got my attention, but after reading the full scoop I’m wondering where’s the green in all this?
Here’s how it breaks down: Princeton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Fred Dryer wants to reduce reliance (in the US) on oil for air travel so he’s got some research going on about how jets burn petroleum and alternative fuels (backed by government and industry grants). This part I get.
He’s also developing jet fuels with “near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions”. Now I am not a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering but when I hear “near-zero” net greenhouse gas emissions I’m thinking clean fuel sources - solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cell. So I was surprised that the (again) “near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions” fuel that Dryer and his colleagues are developing is a synthesis of biomass and coal. Coal?
Now biofuels have their downside, like overtaking food source land, but they certainly out-green coal as a fuel source. Coal is about as dirty as it gets. Environmental News Network reported that:
“a key component of their solution is isolating and storing the carbon dioxide produced during the production of so-called synfuels. This technique, called carbon capture and sequestration, is a promising strategy being investigated intensively by Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative, among other research programs. An ‘especially attractive feature’ of processing coal and biomass together to make synfuels is that it requires only half the amount of biomaterial as pure biofuel production, while still making fuels with near-zero greenhouse gas emissions, Williams said.” (Robert Williams is a senior research scientist at the Princeton Environmental Institute and member of the research team)
See, there it is again, “near-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. Now perhaps I’m missing something but to me this research is about oil not greener skies. Replacing petroleum with coal is about as green a move as driving across town to drop off your carbon offset payment. I’m all for the (7.5 million dollar!) research for alternative jet fuel but I’m not getting the warm eco-fuzzies over here for a fuel that burns coal instead of oil. You check it out and give me your take - Green Skies: Engineer’s work may reduce jet travel’s role in global warming.
Get Around:
- Be sure to check out Transportation Tuesday at Inhabitat!
- Bio-Fuel Tested in Commercial Jet Engine at TreeHugger
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