Honeywell is about to start a test program meant to prove biofuel/fossil fuel blends can be used in aviation successfully. UOP, its subsidiary, will cooperate with the National Research Council of Canada and Agrisoma Biosciences to carry out the program.
Some may argue (rightfully) that corn biofuels compete for land with food crops, but Honeywell’s biofuels are grown from a new non-food, industrial oilseed crop produced by Agrisoma.
The plant is called Brassica carinata, it’s related to turnips and cabbages and can be grown in semiarid areas, thus not competing with food crops.
Biofuel blends have so far not exceeded a 50/50 concentration, while the one used by AeroMexico last year contained only 15% biofuel.
This time Honeywell wants to exceed the 50/50 and make the fuel usable on commercial flights (after testing it, of course).
[via upi]
There are many markets for corn. To select any one market and demonise it is disingenuous to the extreme and certainly not helpful. Ethanol is only one of thousands of products we can and do make from corn. In fact, modern processing plants make as many a 30 products from the same kernel of corn, in one pass thru the processing plant.
To pick out any single product and say that the processing plant can not make it is grossly irresponsible.
We are actively seeking new markets for corn, a multi use commodity. We always carry over a surplus of unsold corn to each new crop. We can easily grow more corn when we have the markets to sell it.