News Cut

A cure for jet fuel blues?

Posted at 12:49 PM on April 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Energy

The cost of jet fuel is bankrupting airlines. Maybe there's a cure coming.

Biomass Magazine reports on Solena Group Technology's intention to build a biobased jet fuel facility in Gilroy, California. It will produce jet fuel from "municipal, agricultural and forestry waste."

The plan involves the use of "plasma gasification," which Matternetwork describesas " super-heating biomass with plasma torches (aka, death rays), rapidly breaking down the material into their component compounds, resulting in synthetic gas, or syngas."

Perhaps the biggest key in the idea is the fact that Gilroy wants the plant in their community.


Comments (2)

I wonder how much energy 'plasma gasification' requires?

Posted by bsimon | April 29, 2008 2:08 PM


I don't know, but it probably involves massive quantities of corn ethanol.

Posted by Jim | April 29, 2008 4:38 PM


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