I’ve never much thought there was much usefulness to waste vegetable oil used for automobile fuel, as there is a much more finite amount of waste frying oil available compared to petroleum. Ditto for chicken fat powered aviation. Would you want to fly on a plane that is chicken fat powered? Personally, it seems clucking ridiculous.
I just wish NASA would stick to space exploration.
Chicken Fat Fuel Emissions Look Cleaner, Greener
An emissions detection rake device is positioned behind the No.3 engine on NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory during ground tests of an alternative jet fuel made from chicken and beef tallow. (NASA / Tom Tschida) NASA recently performed emissions testing on alternative, renewable fuels for a greener and less petroleum-dependent future. The search for alternative fuels is driven by environmental concerns as well as a desire for reduced reliance on foreign sources.
“Renewable” means that the fuel source isn’t some form of fossil fuel. The source could be algae, a plant such as jatropha, or even rendered animal fat. In late March and early April 2011, a team at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California tested renewable biofuel made from chicken and beef tallow in one of the four engines of a DC-8 airplane.
The airplane remained on the ground during the test, known as the Alternative Aviation Fuels Experiment, or AAFEX, while aeronautics researchers measured the fuel’s performance in the engines and examined the engine exhaust for chemicals and contamination that could contribute to air pollution. It was the first test ever to measure biofuel emissions for nitrogen oxides, commonly known as NOx, and tiny particles of soot or unburned hydrocarbon – both of which can degrade air quality in communities with airports. NOx contributes to smog and particulate matter contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular ailments.
“The test results seem to support the idea that biofuels for jet engines are indeed cleaner-burning, and release fewer pollutants into the air. That benefits us all,” said Ruben Del Rosario of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio. Del Rosario manages NASA’s Subsonic Fixed Wing Project, which sponsored the experiment through the agency’s Fundamental Aeronautics Program.
View full size photoResearchers check out emissions detection equipment set up behind NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory during ground tests of alternative biofuels derived from animal fats at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. (NASA / Tom Tschida) The team ran one engine using Hydrotreated Renewable Jet Fuel, or HRJ, and another engine using Jet Propellant 8, or JP-8, fuel, which is very similar to the industry standard Jet-A fuel used in commercial aircraft. They also ran one engine using a 50-50 blend of the two fuels.
The experiment’s chief scientist, Bruce Anderson of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, said that in the engine that burned the biofuel, black carbon emissions were 90 percent less at idle and almost 60 percent less at takeoff thrust. Anderson added that the biofuel also produced much lower sulfate, organic aerosol, and hazardous emissions than the standard jet fuel. Researchers will spend the next several months comparing the results and drawing conclusions.
The recent test came a little more than two years after the same team used the same airplane to test two synthetic, or man-made, fuels derived from coal and natural gas. Researchers found that the synthetic fuels significantly reduced particulate emissions at all engine power settings and also saw some smaller reductions in gaseous emissions at certain engine operating conditions.
“NASA Dryden was excited to contribute to the study of alternative fuels for aviation use,” said Frank Cutler, NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory project manager. “The results of these tests will tell us a lot about emissions generated by modern turbine aircraft engines using these fuels,” Cutler said.
The test setup involved positioning the DC-8 at Dryden’s Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., surrounded by ground support equipment, emissions sensors, and test equipment trailers to house the researchers and observers.
The AAFEX tests in 2009 and this year were funded through NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington.
The experiments included investigators and consultants from private industry, other federal organizations, and academia. In all, 17 government, industry and academic organizations participated in the recent test.
I thought you guys had budget problems, and yet you have money to throw around at this ludicrous research?
Bollocks* I say!
* Anthony I see your trip downunder embellished your vocabulary 🙂
NASA seems to have too many overpaid people hanging around with nothing else to do but think stupid things. Like the Muppet Show.
Uhm! Earth to NASA…..Wouldn’t this have been better tested with a single CFM-56 engine in test cell? Preferably an engine that is due an overhaul, not the “in-service” engine hanging on your wing. And what if the chicken fuel burned up the hot section? An experiment like this doesn’t require the entire DC-8 unless your bandstanding. Cha-Ching!
Bulldust says:
April 27, 2011 at 1:47 am
Bollocks I say!
………………………………
Now, now…. No need for the “fowl” language.
Mythbusters had a better idea about what to do with chickens and aircraft:
Why stop at chickens? Soylent Green works even better, but it costs an arm and a leg.
““Renewable” means that the fuel source isn’t some form of fossil fuel.”
First time I hear that definition. So nuclear is also renewable all of a sudden?
I hope Greenpeace got the memo.
In the 737-200 vs 737-800 there is a difference in fuel consumption at cruise throttle. Take-off fuel burn/6.82 # gal numbers go way up especially if there is some ‘noyse’ abatement mandate. Weight of aircraft and distance per 1000 feet of elevation influence the pounds per minute of burn to give 7,000-20,000/hour for take-off. There might need to be the transportation of all the chicken fat oil delivered to a single point to fill one aircraft. This must be the break-through to perpetual motion.
Henry Ford and others in the early 20th century and later worked on selling the notion that ethanol was a viable replacement for fossil fuels. Diesel being cheaper than kerosene and gasoline won the struggle between man converting raw corn fuel vs the black gold.
Technology does allow some improvement here and there in utilization of chicken fat. There were start on gasoline switching to fuel oil-nearly chicken fat tractors in the 19 00’s forward that could burn this chicken fat with only a gauze sheet filter during fill up. Not very smoke stack air-clean but darn cheap. In the forty’s the geniuses in German engineering technology had aircraft piston/diesel engines at the development stage. Perhaps if subsidizing is in the wind, small farmer-tractors would be a better placement for this new fuel as the pounds per hour is a small fraction of one aircraft.
NASA has reintroduced today’s grant utilization process to advance those long years ago conclusions. No camshaft small diesel engine development technology would have been a better allotment for this grant, although not PC.
Ingrid Newkirk must be having conniptions.
The missing piece of this story is the fact that the demand from the biodiesel industry on WVO and other vegetable and/or rendered fats raises those products prices–in an unnatural way, much like subsidies to farmers growing corn for ethanol. The market affected is the livestock industry which uses these “waste” oils and fats as feed enhancer.
Yep, we all now pay more for our food because people feel good about using KFC’s old oil in their engine.
So let me see if I have this right. We are all supposed to become vegetarians to save the planet and then we can raise livestock to power transportation. It just boggles the mind.
” or even rendered animal fat”
Let’s bring back whale oil.
NASA seem to have lost the plot, or they do not know what is going on in the real world. Pop along to any margarine maker and he will produce this tuff for you by the bucket load. So we have biofuel for cars, now airplanes, hee, what are we going to eat?
Palm oil derivatives would be good, until someone runs a container ship on it. Tax dollars going up in smoke.
@Redneck – “We are all supposed to become vegetarians to save the planet and then we can raise livestock to power transportation.” — pretty good sum up.
So what, then, do we do with all that “waste meat and skin”?!? I smell barbeque!
But no, really, I’m adhering to the vegan ideal, commissar; it’s just that we don’t want to waste any part of poor Foghorn or Bessie. Gaia wouldn’t like that — you want sauce on that rib, commissar?
🙂 mmmmm
This story is so stupid….back in 1986, I worked with Tyson Foods in their efforts to have filtered chicken fat from rendering approved by the EPA for use as boiler fuel (worked great!). Fish rendering plants in Newfoundland have used rendered fish oil for boiler fuel forever.
Chicken fat is not sustainable, ain’t enough to go around….they only burn the low-quality, rancid stuff. High-quality “yellow grease” is used for animal feed formulations.
It will either be petroleum or don’t fly at all. I wonder how much money was wasted on this sideshow.
Syntroleum/Tyson formed Dynamic Fuels to convert waste animal fats into hydroprocessed fats and oils. There are various names for these products, HFO, Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (SPK), Hydroprocessed Renewable Jet (HRJ), Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA), and for diesel fuel, 2nd Generation biodiesel or Green Diesel. Names aside, all these “Green Fuels” are paraffinic hydrocarbon fuels that are chemically similar. For jet fuel, they are about to be approved for blending with conventional jet fuel at up to 50% with some constraints such as minimum aromatics content of the blended fuel. All of this is covered in ASTM D7566 in NA and DefStan 91-91 in the rest of the world (91-91 was just recently changed to include the use of synthetic blend components).
Having been in this field since 1999 and essentially started this effort with the military, I have a significant background in these fuels. What this article fails to say is that these exact emissions benefits attributed to syntheti jet fuel derived from chicken fat are also available from Coal-to-Liquids and Gas-to-Liquids fuels made by the Fischer-Tropsch process, but from abundant alternative resources to crude oil. This is truly the alternative fuels that we should be developing.
Chicken Fat to Fuel is limited to very small quantities relative tot he true need for fuel. A 5,000 bbl/day plant like Dynamic Fuels claims they have is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly 20,000,000 bbl/day that the US consumes. And that one plant uses most of the available waste chicken fat that Tyson will sell. They sell fats and oils from their processing to many other companies, so there is competition for these fats, and using them for fuel is not a very economic market as fuels are always the lowest value home for materials like this.
What we truly need is to use all our domestic energy sources to make drop-in hydrocarbon fuels and stop producing fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel that do not fit into the existing and efficient energy distribution infrastructure. CTL and GTL processes can produce a significant amount of the energy the US needs to reduce our dependence on imported energy. I would recommend that we convert power generation to nuclear, which is well adapted to this use, and use coal and NG for fuels production. NG can be used directly as a fuel in some situations, and can be converted into liquid transportation fuels in other situations. Economics should drive these decisions, not the government.
Regards,
Bob
NGC predictions
National Geographic Channel has a show called aftermath about the world without oil. It portrays a liberal environmentalists dream. The population is on bicycles, the huddled masses desperate for food. The voice used for the narration is by any measure depressing.
Refugees from the cities leave on foot in snow. Astonishingly they find a use for the rifle to hunt for food. From the bolt it looks like an SKS. Emergency vehicles run on ethanol and on streets where it is raining, no snow. The hundreds of millions of animals killed on highways are no longer killed and flourish. Many people return to a simpler way of life with people growing their own food and using candles.
They jump 10 years, the fuel for space rockets is too expensive so the satellite service is of no use as the world turns to alternative power. Bolivia becomes a super power because of its lithium. Ships run on fuel from plants while oil tankers are scrapped. Then 40 years after oil goes the skies are clearer and parking lots are used to plant food. Vehicles are small golf cart size and powered by electricity. Mankind is now recovering from the lack of oil. Unless I missed it they did not mention wind power. The show was a promo for bio fuels.
National Geographic in decades ago ran articles on actual life and conditions now they concentrate on fiction by predicting a fanaticized future based on something imagined and not proven.
The next show was swallowed by the sun.
@E.M. Smith
Matt, you were doing well until you had to drop in this kind of stuff. Gave permission to Mike McMillan to have a go too.
For example, the southern Sudanese who where starving to death for a few years. UN was ready to deliver food. North Sudan would not let them. North Sudan had the money and guns, south sudan did not. Oh, and the north was Muslim while the south was Christian…
South Sudan is regarded as around 66% Animist, 17% Muslim and 17% Christian. John Garang’s conversion to Christianity along with his militia probably changed the balance a little. The strife between herder and farmer tribes, John Garang’s separatist movement and political/financial interference from US Christian missionaries such as Pat Robertson and the lawful central government directly impacted on distribution of food. Just as a reminder, here is a snippet from Anthony’s Policy page. (Oh. And I’m Muslim but from the South).
Certain topics are not welcome here and comments concerning them will be deleted. This includes topics on religion, discussions of barycentrism, astrology, chemtrails, 911 Truthers, HAARP, UFO’s, mysticism, and topics not directly related to the thread.
Chicken – hmmm. Expect questions.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/208808/portlandia-ordering-the-chicken-part-1
Once again, food stuff being turned into fuel.
Didn’t we learn this lesson with ethanol? Turning food into fuel causes food shortages.
At least it’s chickens, not turkeys. 😉
This is one of the reasons why Russia has won ths space race and USA (lost) has no manned launch capability.
I believe all the good lines are taken. Chicken power makes me crave wings; unlike the vegans that are killing the village to save the planet; fuel the 747 with something else Paul McCartney
[d]
Anthony, Do you have a better use for all the waste vegetable oil, animal fat, and meat-rendering by products? Little by little, more and more of that waste is converted to fuel each year in the U.S. Fuel from vegetable oil has been tested in combat and passenger aircraft. Now this. Next they’ll test the fuel from the solid waste that comes from beef, pork and chicken packing plants. Do you actually have a well thought out objection, or is this just an anti-intellectual “drop in the bucket” dismissal?
Dr. bob wrote: What this article fails to say is that these exact emissions benefits attributed to syntheti jet fuel derived from chicken fat are also available from Coal-to-Liquids and Gas-to-Liquids fuels made by the Fischer-Tropsch process, but from abundant alternative resources to crude oil. This is truly the alternative fuels that we should be developing.
That is something that I agree with. Nevertheless, something has to be done with all of America’s agwaste, and converting it to fuel is the best idea so far.