Green aviation fuels not in easy reach, warn scientists

One of the most interesting things a couple of years ago when looking (long weeks of digging and thinking looking for something practical) at finding alternatives for powering IC powered equipment was looking at why old slow fuels like kerosene weren't so common any more and then cracking - a process that breaks big / heavy oil chains into the right length carbon suitable for fuels. I was floored to read that the same plants presently in use could use oil from crops as a feed source to output regular fuel that isn't any issue with the many modern engines that use it ... ie green fuel that's the same as what we already use. I get that there might be additional cleaning or scrubbing processes to cleanse the cracker but ... suddenly a whole lot of oil crops have a good potential without having to evaluate how suitable they are for the bio diesel process ... and only the bio diesel process.

Maybe what I read was wrong ... but if not, the bio diesel touting has been one of the biggest distractions to growing oil crops for fuel ... since cracking process (the same in refineries) would provide not just diesel but also gasoline. Maybe big oil doesn't want that idea talked about much.

The British can be very parochial about these things. It was a flaw in "Renewable Energy without the Hot Air" too.

Like, biofuels would require 50% of our precious farmland, oh no.

Except, UK already import 80% of our food, 2/3rds of Aviation fuel and diesel, half of the gas etc.

I don't particularly think biofuels are the future, but not being able to produce it all onshore is not a detriment compared with the status quo, and in fact is a plus point for renewable sourced e-fuel.

Even if you import then it's better to be able to buy from any sunny country rather than a few random geographies with a literal cartel in control.

Report from The Royal Society:

Net zero aviation fuels: resource requirements and environmental impacts https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-e...