Chemists at a laboratory in Gloucestershire have created a low-carbon jet fuel entirely from human sewage.
James Hygate, CEO of Firefly Green Fuels, said:
"We wanted to find a raw material of very low value that exists in great abundance. And of course poo is plentiful.”
The BBC he says:
Independent tests by international aviation regulators found it to be almost identical to standard fossil jet fuel.
The Firefly team worked with Cranfield University to examine the impact of carbon on the fuel life cycle and concluded that Firefly fuel has a 90% lower carbon footprint than standard jet fuel.
Mr Hygate, who has been developing low-carbon fuels in Gloucestershire for 20 years, said that although the new fuel was chemically just like mineral-based kerosene, "it has no mineral carbon, it's a mineral-free fuel".
"Of course energy will be used (for production), but when we look at the life cycle of the fuel, a saving of 90% is staggering, so yes, we have to use energy, but it will be much lower compared to fossil fuel production .”
So first, they create what they call "bio-crude". It looks like oil: thick and dark. Most importantly, of course, it behaves like crude oil chemically.
Dr Sergio Lima, who is director of research at Firefly Green Fuels, said: "What we are producing here is a fuel from pure scratch."
Biokerosene is now being tested independently at the DLR Institute for Combustion Technology at the German Aerospace Center in collaboration with the University of Washington. Further future testing will also be carried out by the UK SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels) clearing house, based at the University of Sheffield. Early results confirmed that the fuel has almost the same chemical composition as A1 fossil jet fuel, and the UK Department for Transport awarded the team a £2m grant.
But is it worth it? Mr Hygate does the maths:
Each person produces enough sewage in a year to provide 4-5 liters of jet biofuel. To fly a passenger plane from London to New York would require the sewage of 10.000 people annually. And another 10.000 to return.
In other words, the UK's total sewage supply would meet around 5% of the country's total aviation fuel demand.
