www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets October 2019 5
Innovative Performance
The E Series Concept
Combines conventional, manual
data input and CNC versatility
within one machine and control
system
E30/E40/E50/E60/E70
Apprentice, vocational training
• Machining of
simple/complex components
E90/110/120/150/175
Oil and gas industries
• Robust design for precision
and stablility
• Multiple tooling turret options
• Large spindle bores upto
580 mm diameter
• Automated cycles fast and
simple communication
between man and machine
Kyal Machine Tools Limited.
Foundry Road, Stamford,
The Settling Rooms, Springfield Street.
Lincs. PE9 2PP
Tel: 01780 765965
Fax: 01780 765877
MARKET HARBOROUGH
Leicestershire LE16 8BD
Tel No. 01858 467182
e-mail: offi ce@kyalmachinetools.co.uk
e-mail: simon@kyalmachinetools.co.uk
for 2 million tonnes of SAF to be produced
annually by 2020 will not be met.”
The issue is demand, of which the report
says: “The price of bio-based aviation fuel
relative to fossil-based kerosene is one of the
major barriers to its greater market
penetration.” The EU is undertaking a number
of actions to stimulate greater use of SAF, but
the report notes that aviation bio-fuels are not
part of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED)
targets adopted in 2009. Though it adds that
in 2015, the RED was amended to recognise
the possibility of a so-called ‘voluntary aviation
opt-in’ to implement in national legislation,
which was taken up by the Netherlands and,
how about this, the UK.
So what action is underway? According to
the European Aviation Environmental Report
2019, since May 2016, Airbus has offered
customers the option of taking delivery of new
aircraft that can use a blend of biofuel. More
than 25 aircraft have been delivered to date to
three different airlines. And in February this
year, Deutsche Lufthansa AG signed a letter of
intent with Raf nerie Heide (Heide re nery) for
the production and use of environmentally
friendly synthetic kerosene. Last October,
Virgin Atlantic said it had teamed up with
American bioengineering rm LanzaTech to
create renewable jet fuel that will power planes
travelling from Shanghai and Delhi to Heathrow
within two to three years. More recently, Neath
Port Talbot council and LanzaTech are working
on a plan to use gases from Tata’s Port Talbot
steel-making plant to produce fuel.
Also here in the UK, the ‘Sustainable
Aviation Fuel Special Interest Group’ of the
Innovate UK-backed Knowledge Transfer
Network held an event earlier in the year.
Following that, Leigh Hudson, sustainable
fuels manager at British Airways and chair of
the Fuels Working Group at Sustainable
Aviation, said: “We see massive potential. One
of the most important outcomes is the strong
evidence base showing how many
organisations there are in the UK working on
SAF. We didn’t know this before SAF SIG.”
IAG, British Airways’ parent company, has
stated that biofuels could provide up to 25% of
its fuel by 2050. It will invest a total of $400m
on alternative sustainable fuel development
over the next 20 years.
Indeed, in August this year, ltalto
Immingham Ltd, a collaboration between
Velocys, British Airways (BA) and Shell,
submitted a planning application for a
commercial-waste-to-fuel plant. It is the rst
waste-to-jet-fuel plant in the UK and Europe,
it is claimed. The proposed plant will take
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of household
and commercial solid waste, with the SAF
reducing net greenhouse gases by 70%,
compared to the fossil fuel equivalent – equal
to taking up to 40,000 cars per year off the
road, it is further claimed. The site is near
Immingham, close to the Humber Estuary.
Commercial volumes will be produced in 2024.
IAG, British Airways’ parent company,
underlines that it was the rst airline group
worldwide to set its own carbon emissions
targets, as it happens. In 2016, it announced
that it would improve the group’s performance,
moving from 95.4 grammes of CO2 per
passenger-kilometre in 2015 to 87.3 by 2020,
but its reduction efforts also include reducing
emissions from non- ying assets/services,
it should be understood (see IAG’s latest
report: https://is.gd/udiyur).
The ‘Sustainable Aviation Fuel Special
Interest Group’ event also saw University of
Birmingham present an update on its exJET
project. Set up in the 2018, this €15m project,
which involves three partners across ve EU
countries, aims to build a demonstration plant
that converts food waste and waste vegetable
oil into SAF. One of the objectives is to deliver
1,200 tons of SAF (ASTM D7566 Annex 2) for
commercial ights to British Airways. The
project runs until 2022.
Just last month, University of Birmingham
announced it is to lead the UK’s NewJet+
Network, which also runs to 2022,
commencing next month. The network will
explore the barriers to adopting SAF, such as
stakeholder con dence and infrastructure, as
well as the bene ts, including reducing CO2
and, importantly, the non-CO2 emissions.
Finland is working at the opposite end of the
process, creating demand. The country’s
government aims for Finland to be a carbonneutral
country by 2035, with a target of 30%
biofuel share in aviation part of that ambition.
And the Norwegian government has set a goal
of achieving emission-free domestic aviation by
2040 (although this is much linked with
electric aircraft developments, see p10).
The second UN International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) on Aviation and Alternative
Fuels meeting in 2017 adopted a 2050 vision
for SAFs that called on states and all
stakeholders to ensure that a signi cant
proportion of fossil-based aviation fuels be
substituted with SAF by 2050. Quanti ed
targets will only be agreed at the next
conference, to take place by 2025, however.
So, although SAFs seem less of a challenge
than electric/electric-hybrid aircraft, the race is
closer than might have been imagined.
/www.machinery.co.uk
/udiyur)
link
link