https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/flight-from-los-angeles-to-melbourne-powered-in-part-by-mustard-seed-oil
Mustard seed oil to power aviation. Apparently they can get 400 litres of "fuel" per hectare, along with 1400 litres of diesel. They are testing it as a blend right now; presumably they expect to increase the blend.
Some quick figures on the Ars forum: it would be about a million billion hectares to power all aviation from the biofuel (assuming they can be trusted to run a 100% blend) -- and then we'd have a btrillion and a half litres of biodiesel to power ships with or for emergency backup or whatever.
Advantage of mustard seed: it grows in arid conditions.
To be a solution there needs to be no fossil fuel involved.
Having used the wrong figure for Global jet Fuel Consumption - I've done it again, using data from
The International Civil Aviation Authority - 2016 Jet Fuel Burn.
Burn is about 240 million metric tonnes per annum, density of jet fuel 840 kg per m3, gives 286 million m3 ('000 litres) per annum.
Result, land required for 100% supply to the Aviation Industry:- 7.15 million km2, which is 93% of the land area of Australia (73% of the land area of the USA).
Surplus diesel produced is 1 trillion litres per annum.
Australia's jet fuel consumption is 2.8 million metric tonnes per annum, so land required is about 70,000 km2 - plenty of land cleared already in Queensland (due to reversal of environment friendly regulations) and is generally semi-arid so OK for the crop.
Of note is that the ICAO predicts that on present trends consumption to rise to 700 million metric tonnes by 20050 (even on an optimistic scenario for fuel efficiency), which would need 21 million km2.
If the data is right - this is just not viable