India’s big plans for cleaner jet fuel face hurdles

“The infrastructure to build out the availability of jet aviation fuel has taken decades and decades, so we’re going to have to either modify or build over that system an equally convenient capability for sustainable aviation fuel.” Salil Gupte

NEW DELHI: At the foothills of the Himalayas, in the city of Dehradun, India’s government is working on a jet fuel it hopes can help clean up the smog hanging over its big cities.

There – on a sprawling 300 acre tea estate where leopards and deer can be spotted – scientists are working with partners including Boeing Co to get global approvals for their biofuel, which is made from waste cooking oil and the seeds of plants like pongamia and jatropha that aren’t consumed.

The project run by the Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), a laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, is India’s attempt at shaking up the Us$155bil (Rm710bil) global biofuels industry, which has long been dogged by criticism that cropbased alternatives like ethanol can trigger indirect emissions by expanding farmland and driving up food prices for the world’s poorest people.

The institute has tied up with India’s biggest airline, Indigo, to deploy its homegrown fuel, however its researchers face a string of challenges.

Not only is the new technology for the production of the fuel more expensive than traditional jet fuel, but there are difficulties collecting sufficient raw materials, hampering scientists’ ability to produce it on a wide enough scale to be commercially viable.

Building the infrastructure needed to transport and store the sustainable aviation fuel will take “significant” investments, said Salil Gupte, president of Boeing India.

“At this point, it’s more about first proving that we can do the fuel locally and that’s what we’re engaged on with IIP,” Gupte said.

“The infrastructure to build out the availability of jet aviation fuel has taken decades and decades, so we’re going to have to either modify or build over that system an equally convenient capability for sustainable aviation fuel.”

Villagers rummage through jungles of Chhattisgarh and Karnataka to gather seeds of wild jatropha and pongamia trees, which are then crushed in small mills to extract oils that then travel hundreds of miles in trucks to reach the institute in Dehradun and get converted into sustainable aviation fuel.

While they work on boosting scale, the Dehradun scientists are also seeking approval for the fuel from ASTM International, the

Pennsylvania-based organisation that develops and publishes standards for products and services globally.

Boeing said it’s presently helping review and support the certification process for the aviation fuel samples from Dehradun.

Airbus SE, meanwhile, is studying the demand and challenges of sustainable aviation fuel in India with Paris-based airport operator Groupe ADP among others to prepare a business case for the fuel’s local production.

One advantage the fuel would have over other alternatives being used in the United States is that it doesn’t have to be blended with regular jet fuel and can potentially be used as is, according to Anil Sinha, senior principal scientist at the institute. — Bloomberg