Racing towards a sustainable aviation fuel

Keep your eyes skyward this November for news of a publicity stunt expected to draw fresh attention to the controversial idea of sustainable aviation fuel. That’s when British pilot Jeremy Roswell plans to fly a small private plane 10,000 miles -- from Sydney, Australia to London, England -- powered by a fuel made from plastic waste.

The Cessna in question uses a diesel engine and is expected to make its historic run on a product manufactured by the Irish company Cynar Plc. The fuel reportedly uses pyrolysis technology to melt down the waste plastics in an oxygen-free, emissions-free process.

“Our technology represents a unique and profitable way to significantly decrease the amount of end-of-life plastics that are disposed in landfills and incinerators,” said Cynar CEO and Chairman Michael Murray in a press statement earlier this year. Cynar has also awarded an $11 million contract to Rockwell Automation (NYSE: ROK) to design and build a plastic-to-fuel conversion plant in the U.K.

But Cynar isn’t the only one trying to find an affordable, sustainable vehicular fuel. The Filipino company Polygreen is also using pyrolysis to convert plastics into fuel. Its founder believes the new fuel will burn cleaner and be 20 percent less expensive than standard fuel due to the massive availability of waste plastics.

In Indiana, Swift Fuels LLC is also working on that challenge, but from a different angle. It’s developing high-octane aviation biofuel using agricultural feed stuffs like switchgrass and grains.

Photo of airplane icon by vladis torms via Shutterstock.

Next page: Multiple approaches

Fingers crossed this

Talley Summerlin (not verified), September 14, 2012 - 06:50

Fingers crossed this technology works AND the business model is robust. Next step: blending this innovation with the need to clean up the North Pacific Gyre of plastic soup. If we can think of the gyre (sadly) as a source of raw material, a (brown)field to be harvested, then we could solve challenges in a variety of arenas. Now - who's gonna figure out how to scoop plastic from the ocean in an economically feasible manner...?

Use retired whaling ships and

ray pokorny (not verified), September 14, 2012 - 10:18

Use retired whaling ships and seagoing fish factories to harvest plastic islands in the Pacific.

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Racing towards a sustainable aviation fuel

Archived Comments (2)

Fingers crossed this

Use retired whaling ships and