Energy output of Algae biofuel was “higher than the regular fuel” in test flight
Today, Continental Airlines successfully conducted a test flight where one engine ran on a 50-50 mixture of regular fuel and a biofuel mixture of algae and jatropha. The other engine just ran strictly on regular jet fuel.
Anyways, beside from the fact that the plane actually took off and landed successfully, something else was discovered: the engine running on the 50-50 mixture actually had a higher energy output than the regular fuel one. Take a look:
During the flight, two pilots put the aircraft through a series of normal and non-normal flight maneuvers, such as shutting down and restarting the engine in mid-flight and power accelerations and decelerations. An engineer was on board to record flight data.
The flight operated with a biofuel blend of 50 percent biologically derived fuel and 50 percent traditional jet fuel in one of the engines. The other engine ran on traditional jet fuel, allowing Continental to compare how the fuels perform.
‘Slight Difference’
“They did notice a slight difference in some of the readings indicating that the energy output of the biofuel was higher than the regular fuel,” Messing said. “ They were essentially getting more thrust from the biofuel-powered engine using a lower amount of fuel than from the regular engine.”
Yes, you read that correctly, the biofuel mixture actually produced more energy than regular fuel. If this results ends up being the standard for algae based biofuels, algae could end up being a replacement for regular oil strictly on the grounds of efficiency.
Now all they have to do is make sure that these fuels can be produced at commercially competitive prices.
[...] like the Continental Airlines test flight in January, the recent Japanese Airlines test flight that used a biofuel mixture found it more fuel efficient [...]