The saline sands and marshes of the Persian Gulf could soon start yielding biofuel, if Masdar, Boeing and Honeywell's UOP have anything to do with it.
The three said Tuesday that they're studying the potential of halophytes - plants that can live on salt water – as a biofuel feedstock. Masdar, the Abu Dhabi-based green tech investment group, will host the project at its Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, which expects to report its results next year.
Halophytes make up about 2 percent of all the world's plants. But they can grow on water that will kill other plants, meaning they can't possibly compete with crops.
Some of them are quite oily. The seeds of the Salicornia bigelovii plant, for example, are about 30 percent oil and 35 percent protein. The plant is being grown in Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Mexico to see if harvesting it for biofuel is commercially feasible.
A University of Arizona study found that a half-million square miles of salty land and marsh around the world could supply about 1.5 billion barrels of ethanol per year, Wired reported last year.
Boeing and UOP have been making biofuel from multiple feedstocks as part of their search for a bio-based jet fuel (see Biofuel Powers Air New Zealand Test Flight).
The Masdar project is being done as part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group, an industry consortium looking for a fuel that will reduce commercial aviation's carbon emissions, now estimated at 2 percent to 3 percent of the world's total.
Feedstocks for bio-fueled test flights so far have included jatropha, algae and palm oil. But Masdar's home city of Abu Dhabi is on an island in the Persian Gulf, which has its share of mangrove swamps and marshes filled with halophytic grasses.
Biofuel is only the newest green technologies Masdar is working on. The government-backed group has put more than a billion dollars into solar and wind power, and is building Masdar City, an emissions-free, energy-independent green technology urban development meant to house 40,000 people (see Green Light post).
