by Ben Rosen (Christian Science Monitor) Algae grows faster and produces higher energy yields than other plants, but is much more expensive to turn into fuel than traditional petroleum byproducts. — … Airbus researchers are growing algae for biofuel in tanks near Munich, just one in a growing number of efforts to make flying more environmentally sustainable.
But algae won’t fuel the commercial flights any time soon, says researcher Thomas Brueck, an associate professor of industrial biocatalysis at Munich Technical University, who predicts algal biofuel could supply up to 5 percent of jet fuel needs by 2050.
“To substitute 100 percent of the kerosene use today, we will not do it with algae alone,” Professor Brueck told Reuters. “We need a combination of different technologies to actually enable that substitution.” READ MORE includes VIDEO (Reuters) and MORE (Algae Industry Magazine)