Airport joins effort to promote biofuels

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Portland International Airport is joining with other Northwest aviation interests to promote the development of a Northwest aviation biofuels industry.

The Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest project is a collective effort between the Port of Portland, Seattle-based Alaska Airlines (NYSE: ALK), Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Spokane International Airport and Washington State University.

The goal is to assess all phases of developing an aviation biofuels industry, from production to transport to consumption by the airlines. The effort will include analyzing regional biomass resources, such as algae, oilseeds like camelina, wood byproducts and others.

The project, funded by the participating agencies, will be completed over the next six months. It will be managed by Climate Solutions, a Seattle-based environmental nonprofit group.

Though air travel is considered one of the most efficient forms of travel, it’s also one of the dirtiest, accounting for about 2 percent of man-made carbon emissions. As a result, the industry as a whole is targeting ways to reduce its carbon footprint, including the development of aviation biofuel, which can have higher energy content than fossil-based fuel.

"Developing a sustainable aviation fuel supply now is a top priority both to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity at regional levels and to support the broader aim of achieving carbon-neutral growth across the industry by 2020," Jim Albaugh, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a news release.