The mood was celebratory on a humid June evening in 2011 as a red-and-white Gulfstream G450 belonging to Honeywell International Inc. took off from a New Jersey airport at sunset on a history-making flight to Paris. I was onboard the executive jet to report on the first transatlantic flight powered by biofuels. One of the Gulfstream’s engines was burning a blend of petroleum and a sustainable aviation fuel made with oil from the seeds of the inedible weed camelina.
Video screens tracked the G4’s route retracing Charles Lindbergh’s pioneering 1927 flight across the Atlantic, though our journey was far plusher. At the touch of a button, pleated white shades descended over the aircraft’s large oval windows, and fresh air filled the optimally pressurized and quiet wood-trimmed cabin. Technology from Honeywell’s subsidiary UOP had refined the camelina into renewable jet fuel, and as we reached cruising altitude executives settled into wide leather seats and clinked wine glasses. The trip avoided emitting 5.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide compared to a conventional flight.
“We’re ready to go to commercial scale and commercial use,” said Jim Rekoske, a Honeywell vice president. Yet nine years later, biofuels account for only a tiny fraction of global jet fuel consumption—less than 0.1% in 2018 according to the International Energy Agency. In the U.S., the federal Energy Information Administration projects that the consumption of all biofuels will rise from 7.3% of total fuel consumption in 2019 to just 9% in 2040 if oil prices remain low. Even if petroleum prices skyrocket, biofuel consumption is predicted to increase to just 13.5% by 2050.