Abu Dhabi will Debut World's First Facility to Produce Food and Biofuels

The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC), Boeing and Honeywell UOP, claims that they will soon launch the world's first bioenergy research facility using desert land and seawater, to produce both food and aviation fuels in Abu Dhabi.

The facility will be launched in March and is located at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. The pilot plant will include saltwater aquaculture ponds where fish and shrimp will be grown. Water from the ponds will then be used to irrigate and fertilize salt-tolerant halophyte plants which will be harvested and turned into biofuel.

The research facility is a platform to explore the commercial viability and scale-up potential of an integrated, sustainable bioenergy system that produces food and fuel, without using arable land or fresh water in a desert environment, the SBRC said in a statement.

It was designed as an integrated bioenergy system specifically to eliminate the major criticisms against large-scale biofuel production such as its competition with food crops for fresh water and land.