We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. Albert Bates, author of The Financial Collapse Survival Guide and Cookbook, brings you along on his personal journey.
"What does the Doolittle Raid on Japan have in common with the Battle of Britain? — Aviation fuel."
James Harold Doolittle
was born into a rocky river camp near Nome in 1896. His father, Frank, a
carpenter-woodworker, had dragged the family from California to the
frozen frontier chasing the shiny dust shaken from sieves and dreams of a
quick fortune.
Through howling winters and black
fly-biting summers, “Dusty” Doolittle grew up with his American father’s
fearless recklessness and his German mother’s iron will. When mom left
Frank to go back to California, Dusty boxed for nickels, hawked
newspapers, and tinkered with engines. He was seven when Orville Wright
defied gravity, sitting in front of a 12 HP, 1025 rpm, in-line four at
Kitty Hawk.
At 15, while working as a janitor, “Jimmy” as he was
then coming to be known, snuck into classes at U.C. Berkeley. At 21, he
enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Signal Corps Reserve. Training
at Rockwell Field, he survived stalls and spins, earning his wings in
1918. After the war, he was a first lieutenant in the Air Service and a
test pilot at McCook Field, where he pioneered instrument flying—no
horizon, just gauges and guts. In 1922, strapped to a de Havilland DH-4,
he executed the first barrel roll outside a loop, defying then-known
physics to pull negative-G’s in a canvas-covered biplane.
To make
that negative-G barrel roll, he first initiated a helical roll, in
which the aircraft follows a looping path, experiencing sustained
negative G-forces, meaning the aircraft pulls forward and downward while
rolling, keeping the pilot “outside” the loop’s curve. He pulled back
slightly on the stick to raise the nose, then transitioned to forward
stick pressure (pushing the nose down) while applying continuous aileron
input to roll the aircraft inverted, creating centrifugally negative G
(-1 to -3G) where loose objects float toward the canopy, blood rushes to
the head (no pressure suits in 1922) and structural stress on the
aircraft spikes (the DH-4 had spruce spars and ribs with fabric
covering, guyed by steel wires). Doolittle maintained forward pressure
on the stick throughout the roll to follow an upward-concave circular
path (opposite a standard positive-G barrel), rolling at a steady rate
(often 1-2 seconds per 360°) while using rudder for coordination to
prevent slipping or skidding, then, after one or more rotations, eased
off forward pressure, pulling back gently to level the nose, and
neutralized controls to exit, monitoring airspeed to avoid over-speeding
or stalling.
Jimmy earned a doctorate in aeronautics from MIT in
1925, becoming the first aviator-physicist. Racing became his next
passion: Schneider Trophy, Thompson Cup, Bendix—setting transcontinental
race records despite permanent scars from crashes he walked away from.
Recalled
as a major, then bumped up to lieutenant colonel, Doolittle pitched a
mad raid on Tokyo to the brass. With a handpicked suicide group to fly
“Special Aviation Project No. 1,” Doolittle launched 16 overweighted
B-25 Mitchells from USS Hornet—his own leading the way into the wind
from a pitching deck, the shortest, most unthinkable and untested launch
roll in history. On April 18, 1942, 650 miles from the carrier, their
bombs rained down on a shocked Japan. Doolittle’s own payload struck a
schoolyard by error. In China, out of fuel, his and the other crew’s
aircraft crash-landed in rice paddies.
Commanding the Twelfth Air
Force in Africa and then the Eighth Air Force in England from pre-D-Day
up to the liberation of Berlin, General Doolittle—he was by then called
“Uncle Jimmy” by his crews—transformed the Army Air Corps into a
co-equal military branch. Postwar, he forced the Air Force into jets. As
a reserve lieutenant general, he advised on missiles, space and the
ICBM Triad while sometimes sneaking away to glider soar over the
Sierras. Perhaps he was thinking about what potential Einstein, Pauling,
or daring young Doolittle might have died in that schoolyard in 1942.
Uncle Jimmy’s Legacy
Global aviation has committed to net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Some
43 airlines have set corporate goals and timetables. They recognize
that the warming trend is not their friend. It is a bad look for
business. They know they currently contribute 2.5 percent of atmospheric
carbon pollution—and rather than shouldering the blame or facing
government restriction, they are trying to get out front with
“sustainable aviation fuels” (SAF).
Doolittle pushed Shell
Oil to invest in large‑scale production of 100‑octane fuel at a time
when no aircraft required it. Now almost all do. Derived from fossil
fuels, avgas consists of hundreds of hydrocarbons (primarily C8-C16
alkanes with long-chain polymers). To produce it, refineries perform
multistage distillation. Avgas comprises various blends of kerosene,
gasoline, and ethanol, along with additives. If Doolittle were alive
today (he died in 1993), he might well be working on the SAF problem. It
is estimated that by 2050, global annual SAF demand will reach 26
million tons (32.5 billion liters). It is presently doubling production
annually, with China the growth leader. SAF now costs about $8.65 per
gallon, compared with $2.80 for conventional jet fuel.
Potential global SAF production capacity by region (Strategy, 2023).
According
to Boeing, SAF currently fuels more than a quarter-million flights per
year. Boeing has committed to making all its airplanes compatible with
100% SAF by 2030—four years from now.
There are no shortages of challenges.
The
substantial disparity in the energy density between lithium-ion
batteries (energy content = 0.54–1.26 MJ/kg) and jet fuels (energy
content = 34.9–40.6 MJ/L) renders the theoretical application of
rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in aviation ostensibly impracticable.
— Arlsan (2022)
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a carbon-neutral way to keep flying?
Those
bicycle-building brothers didn’t have the faintest glimmer of what they
had created that cloudy day in Kitty Hawk, 122 years ago.
Global commercial aviation currently carries about 5.2 billion passengers annually.
Air
travel supports an estimated 10–12 million direct and indirect jobs
worldwide, with broader economic multipliers amplifying this to 80–100
million when including induced effects such as hospitality and retail
trade.
The sector generates approximately $1.05 trillion in
airline revenues alone for 2026, while contributing $2.8–$3.5 trillion
to global GDP through connectivity-driven trade, tourism, and
productivity gains—equivalent to 3–4% of world GDP.
It is
estimated that by 2050, air travel will carry over 10 billion passengers
annually, support 180 million jobs, and generate nearly $9 trillion in
economic activity.
Knowing what we know now about the pace and scale of climate change, I can’t help but laugh at that prediction.
And
yet, there are those in industry and government who have mustered the
resources—billion-dollar annual research budgets and business
consortia—to get there, regardless of —or perhaps oblivious to —climate
change.
Global CO2 emission trends. a, Seasonal variations in regional fossil CO2 emissions in 2015 (expressed in Mt/month). Crippa, M. et al. 2020. b, Relationship between the gross domestic product (GDP) and annual energy consumption. c, Typical winter scenery in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Liu, Z. et al. 2022. d, Temporal
evolution of historical CO2 emissions (navy; including emissions from
fossil fuel combustion and cement production processes), near-real-time
CO2 emissions (red), projected pathways for mitigating CO2 emissions
(dark blue and aqua), and historical fossil CH4 emissions (light blue;
1970–2018 data from EDGARv6.0, scaled to 2021 with IEA data).
Solid/dashed lines and shading represent the median and range,
respectively. Inset depicts daily near-real-time CO2 data obtained
during 2019–2021 and the corresponding changes in annual CO2 emission.
Current emission trends indicate that the allowed future emissions for
limiting anthropogenic warming to 1.5 °C (the remaining carbon budgets)
will be exhausted within 10 years.
One impediment is the availability of feedstocks. According
to the U.S. Department of Energy, a wide variety of organic solid
wastes (OSWs) can be used to produce SAF, including but not limited to
corn grain, oilseeds, algae, oily wastes, agricultural and forestry
wastes, lumber mill wastes, municipal rubbish, livestock manure,
municipal sludge, and energy crops. If that list sounds familiar, those
are the same feedstocks in high demand by the emergent biochar industry
and its full range of disruptive products and services.
According to the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in 2020, the global generation of OSWs (consisting of municipal solid wastes, agricultural wastes, and food wastes) was approximately 7.34 billion tons. With rapid population growth and accelerated urbanization, it is projected that by 2050, the annual production of OSWs will reach 12.71 billion tons (Bank, 2022; FAO 2020, FAO 2022). Transforming these OSWs into SAF could not only alleviate environmental pollution caused by traditional waste management methods (such as landfilling and incineration), including greenhouse gas emissions, groundwater contamination, and deteriorating air quality, but also substitute traditional petroleum fuels and significantly reduce carbon emissions throughout the lifecycle of aviation fuels.
According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy, one billion tons of dry OSWs could theoretically produce 50–60 billion gallons (equivalent to 151.6–181.9 million tons) of SAF (Energy, 2023). Using the 2020 figures for global OSWs production (with a moisture content of 70 %), theoretically, it could theoretically produce 110.1–132.12 billion gallons (equivalent to 333.8–400.6 million tons) of SAF, and by 2050, this could generate 190.65–228.78 billion gallons (equivalent to 578.1–693.7 million tons) of SAF. Additionally, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and IATA, in 2020, the global aviation industry’s fuel demand was approximately 58 billion gallons (equivalent to 175.9 million tons), with projections indicating that by 2050, the fuel demand in the aviation industry will be 3.6 times that of 2020 (Energy, 2022; IATA, 2021; IEA, 2020). Therefore, SAF could theoretically be produced to meet global aviation fuel demand in 2020. By 2050, this SAF could replace at least 86.3 % of global aviation fuel demand.
Anaerobic Digestion and Biochar
Could biochar production be combined with SAF? Studies
using pyrolysis of feedstocks such as bamboo or seaweed are promising,
but many miss the co-benefits of biochar or undersell its potential. So,
for instance, Professor Wei from Tsinghua University proposed
industrial conversion of CO2 to renewable aviation fuel by using Direct
Air Capture to gather the CO2 using a ZnCrOx/H-ZSM-5 catalyst (a method
we have often chided in these posts as wasteful of money, renewable
energy, and effort) and biomass gasification to make green hydrogen that
can then be combined to make SAF. Gasification offers many benefits,
including cogeneration of heat and electricity, but these are largely
ignored in the rush to develop a bio-oil analog for crude oil that can
be further refined, while discounting biochar as insignificant.
Seaweed could become a promising source of biofuels for aviation if sustainably produced and economic and policy challenges can be overcome, says a report by Norwegian NGO Bellona. Seaweeds, or macroalgae, generally contain high amounts of carbohydrates (sugars) that make them highly suitable for bioethanol and biobutanol production, where the sugars are fermented. They belong to the fastest growing species in the world and growth rates far exceed those of terrestrial plants, plus the rapid growth also means they absorb significant amounts of CO2. Most importantly, they do not compete for valuable land space or fresh water during cultivation as do many crops grown for biofuels. Industrial seaweed cultivation, where it is mainly used in food production and pharmaceuticals, is largely confined to Asia whereas in Europe it is in the very early development phase.
***
Giant kelp grows faster than bamboo at about 7-14cm per day – even up to half a metre under ideal conditions – with sugar kelp grown in UK waters being shown to grow 1.1cm per day, equivalent to reaching over 2.25m in a year.
***
Furthermore, seaweed is incredibly efficient at taking up nutrients such as nitrogen and increasingly scarce phosphorus, which it absorbs with comparable efficiency to a waste-water treatment plant. This eliminates the need for fertilisation and, in fact, cultivation of seaweeds in practice means recapturing nutrients into biomass that in turn can be reused for fertilisation purposes. When cultivation is located in proximity to fish farms, seaweed can use the excess, otherwise wasted, nutrients and thereby ensure recycling and cleaning of the surrounding waters.
—Salon.com
However, Deng Chen at University College Cork and others proposed
“a cascading circular bioenergy system incorporating pyrolysis (Py) for
production of biochar, syngas and bio-oil, with the primary use of
biochar in anaerobic digestion to promote biomethane production through
direct interspecies electron transfer.” When common brown kelp (Laminaria digitata) was anaerobically digested with biochar (1 part biochar to 4 parts seaweed), the process integration increased biomethane yield by 17% and bio-oil yield by 10%. The
digestate residue can be an excellent crop amendment or a heating fuel.
With further refinement, the gas and oil could become transportation
fuels for shipping and aviation, and the digestate could
be gasified again to produce high-quality biochar for graphene
supercapacitors, solid carbon catalysts, graphite lubricants,
bioasphalt, and other fossil-fuel replacements.
Proposed industrial pathway of CO2 conversion to jet fuel. a–c,
Schemes proposed by Honeywell (a) (data were obtained from
https://www.honeywell.com.cn) and Wei et al. (b and c). American
Chemical Society 2022. d, H2 consumption per unit of SAF for the two
models.
Redux
Still, there is a larger question in all this that won’t go away. It may not be whether we can engineer a way forward for commercial aviation and other creature comforts, but whether we should.
Should we be offering life extension for a model of civilization or
economics that is grounded in unlimited growth and destruction of the
natural world, placing a single species and its lustful desires at the
center of every decision under a false rubric of “the greater good,” or
should we instead be redesigning the whole system into one that partners
with the natural world to produce the truly greater good of peace,
harmony and biodiverse co-benefts?
That challenge hangs in
the air like a Wright glider, suspended until the remaining thimble of
fuel is exhausted or a sand dune pops up to grab its propeller.
Arslan,
M. T.; Tian, G.; Ali, B.; Zhang, C. X.; Xiong, H.; Li, Z. W.; Luo, L.
Q.; Chen, X.; Wei, F. Highly selective conversion of CO2 or CO into
precursors for kerosene-based aviation fuel via an aldol-aromatic
mechanism. ACS Catal. 2022, 12, 2023–2033.
Deng,
C., Lin, R., Kang, X., Wu, B., O’Shea, R., & Murphy, J. D. (2020).
Improving gaseous biofuel yield from seaweed through a cascading
circular bioenergy system integrating anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 128, 109895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.109895
Tian
G, Zhang C, Wei F. Fueling the future: Innovating the path to
carbon-neutral skies with CO2-to-aviation fuel. Carbon Future, 2024,
1(2): 9200010. https://doi.org/10.26599/CF.2024.9200010
Wang,
B., Ting, Z. J., & Zhao, M. (2024). Sustainable aviation fuels: Key
opportunities and challenges in lowering carbon emissions for aviation
industry. Carbon Capture Science & Technology, 13, 100263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccst.2024.100263
Global Village Institute is pleased to announce that we have agreed to sponsor Biochar-On-Site.
If you would like to pledge $8 per month (about the cost of one
Peppermint Mocha or Frappuccino at Starbucks), you will make biochar
from crop and forestry waste to protect forested areas and build
healthy, water-retaining soil. The Frappuccino you buy for your friends
is now tax-deductible.
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Meanwhile, let’s end these wars. We support peace in the West Bank and Gaza and
the efforts to end the war in Ukraine immediately. Global Village
Institute’s Peace Thru Permaculture initiative has sponsored the Green
Kibbutz network in Israel and the Marda Permaculture Farm in the West
Bank for over 30 years. It will continue to do so with your assistance.
We aid Ukrainian families seeking refuge in ecovillages and permaculture
farms along the Green Road and work to heal collective trauma
everywhere through the Pocket Project. You can read about it on the
Global Village Institute website (GVIx.org). I appreciate your support.
And speaking of resettling refugees, did you know? A study by Poland’s National Development Bank found that the influx of Ukrainians added between 0.5% and 2.5% to GDP growth and paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.
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#RestorationGeneration.
Even
when humans are locked in a cage, the Earth remains beautiful.
Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The
air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you
step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth,
not its hosts.
We have a complete solution. We
can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover
all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and
tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. Coral reefs rebuilt
with biorock build beaches faster than the seas are rising. It is not
too late. All of these great works of nature are recoverable. We can
have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have
an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on
our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand
flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.
And now we have our own swag store at Red Bubble. Swing on in for the latest wearables and chachkas....
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