Japanese Euglena to establish an algae-based jet fuel demo plant

Euglena, a Japanese microalgae developer and producer, has partnered with Japan’s largest airline ANA Holdings to develop an algae-based jet fuel.

A 3 billion yen (appr. €23m) demonstration plant, using technology from Chevron, is scheduled to come online in early 2018 with plans to 125,000 litres of renewable jet fuel.

Euglena hopes to be able to commercialise the fuel, derived from its namesake euglena algae, by 2020 and set up more facilities with output more than 400 times that of the demonstration plant.

The company also want to set up large-scale cultivation facilities outside of Japan.

The algae fuel, refined in the US from oil extracted from euglena, has a chemical makeup similar to the of jet kerosene.

‘We'll use the fuel from the demonstration plant on real flights, mixing it with standard oil-based fuel,’ says Kiyoshi Tonomoto, executive VP at ANA Holdings.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation aims to stabilise the aerospace industry’s CO₂ emissions at 2020 levels.

Biofuels are attracting attention as a carbon-neutral option to help achieve this goal, since plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when burned.

The biggest hurdle to commercializing the algae-derived fuel will be reducing the price, which is reportedly ten times higher than petroleum-derived kerosene.