BIOMASS HUB

Reuters reports that despite Pentagon’s efforts to promote the development of biomass fuels that could power future fighter jets and other warplanes, defense officials say it could take years to get a full-fledged industry on its feet.

The Pentagon’s Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) signed an agreement in March with the Air Transport Association (ATA), the main industry group for U.S. commercial airlines, to help promote widespread commercialization of environmentally-friendly aviation biofuels and become less reliant on petroleum.

Together the airline industry and the U.S. military use more than 1.5 million barrels of jet fuel a day.

The challenge now is to promote construction of facilities that could produce large quantities of biofuels using algae, camelina and other plants — aka, commercialization.

Mark Iden of DESC said there was a lot of research and development under way, but it could take years to create a full-fledged industry:

We are literally developing it from scratch.

Iden said the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had spurred interest in the Pentagon’s work on alternative fuels and underscored the importance of alternative fuels.

More on the Pentagon’s efforts to integrate biofuels into their fuel supply.