British Airways announces alternative fuel test; avoids use of term “biofuels” due to negative association with ethanol

In England, British Airways announced that it would test four alternative fuels for a trial in a Rolls Royce test bed early next year. The company said that the fuel it chose would not impact food, water or land, although it did not offer details on how this would be achieved in a press release. BA staff newspaper British Airways News said that the term alternative fuels was used instead of biofuels because of the negative association of the term with first generation ethanol. The company said that it would test four fuels, and was seeking up to 15,000 gallons of fuel for the test.

Aviation biofuel background

JAL. Japan Air Lines said that it will conduct a Boeing 747-based biofuels test before next March. JAL becomes the fourth airline, after Virgin, Air New Zealand and Continental, to schedule a biofuels test in association with Boeing and General Electric. Virgin completed its test earlier this year, while Continental and Air New Zealand will conduct their tests later this year.

Lufthansa. Lufthansa said that it would convert up to 10 percent of its fuel usage to biofuels by 2020, as a part of its overall effort to reduce emissions by 25 percent in that time frame. compared to 2006 levels. The company, which announced a set of measures to improve environmental efficiency, also said that it would reduce NOX emissions by 80 percent from 2000 levels.

Malaysia. Malaysia Airlines indicated that the airline expects to convert to biofuels as soon as they reach commercial viability in Southeast Asia. The airline’s CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala made the comments while launching a “MAS Goes Green” initiative, which channels voluntary funds from customers into a Forest Research Institute-managed trust fund for sanctioned forest conservation projects.

Air France-KLM. Air France-KLM announced an agreement with Algae-Link to procure algae oil to be blended with conventional jet fuel. Deliveries of algae oil will commence by the end of 2008, according to Algae-Link executives, but quantities were not disclosed.

JetBlue. Airbus and Honeywell recently announced a partnership that they said would replace up to 30 percent of jet fuel with biofuels. The partnership, which also includes Jet Blue and the International Aero Engines consortium, said that they would produce biofuels from algae and other non-food vegetable oils. The International Aero Engines consortium included Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce. Fuels will be developed by Honeywell UOP, which last year won a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) to develop biofuels for the US military

Continental. Continental Airlines will become the first US airliner to conduct a biofuels test flight. The company announced that, in partnership with GE and Boeing, it would schedule a test biofuels flight in 2008. The companies said that the test would include a different set of feedstocks than those tested in the historic Virgin Atlantic flight, which included babassu and coconut oil.

The companies would test up to 50 percent biodiesel, compared to the B20 blend used in the Virgin flight.

Virgin. The World Development Movement called the recent Virgin 747 biodiesel test flight a “publicity stunt with dangerous consequences for the planet” and said that Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson “should back a campaign to include aviation in the climate change bill.”

Sir Richard Branson, in remarks surrounding the Virgin 747 biodiesel test flight, said that algae would almost certainly be the feedstock for commercial aviation biofuels, implying that the selection of coconut and babassu oil had been made in light of an algae oil shortage. Branson announced a new business unit of Virgin Atlantic Airways that would produce algae-based biofuels for the airline’s use. Branson told reporters that algae is the best fuel feedstock because it does not affect food supply. He said that his company is “talking to a lot of sewage plants about setting up algae plants above and using a lot of the CO2 coming off those sewage plants” and said that using CO2 to produce algae for low-emission fuels was a “a double-whammy effect.”

Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand said that its upcoming biofuels test in August will use jatropha biodiesel in one of the test 747’s four engines. The company said that if the test is successful that it intends to convert its planes to use a B10 mix of jatropha and conventional fuel, noting that jatropha biodiesel costs up to 30 percent less than conventional jet fuel;. The proposed test flight from Auckland will take two hours, using jatropha from India and Africa. Fuel certification will take up to three years, according to the airline, from the time of the first test flight.

The news will surprise observers who expected Air New Zealand to opt for algae-based biodiesel produced by Aquaflow, a New Zealand-based company that has been working closely with the airline all year.

Air New Zealand Deputy CEO Norm Thompson said recently: “Our goal within the organisation is certainly to get into a position where we could run if not all, certainly part of our domestic fleet on biofuels. Believe you me, this is happening quicker than we had planned. It is really advancing quite quickly and the way Jet A-1 (airline fuel) is priced at the moment, at $US172, it gives a hell of a lot of people a hell of a lot of encouragement to get on and make it happen bloody quickly.”

International Air Transport Association. IATA has set a goal of making planes 25 percent more fuel efficient by 2022, and “zero emission” planes within 50 years, but with airlines expected to increase fleet size by 140 percent in the next 20 years, such an effort would not keep pace with the rate of airline fleet growth. Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of IATA said, “Air transport takes its environmental responsibility seriously. Alongside safety and security it is a pillar on which we have built a great global industry. Despite our good track record, air transport’s carbon footprint is growing. That is not acceptable. Our vision is for air transport to achieve carbon neutral growth in the medium-term, on the way to a carbon emission free future.

Biocrude jet fuel. Sustainable Power announced that its 10 percent biojet fuel blend had been successfully tested in conjunction with AmSpec Services and an undisclosed major domestic US airline.  Tests concluded that the blend had met and exceeded current jet fuel specifications, providing the company with a viable entry into the 18 billion gallon commercial aviation fuel market.  A link to view the laboratory test results has been posted here. Sustainable Power’s bioreactors utilize the Rivera process to produce bio-crude from algae, palm fruit, coconuts, and other industrial or food waste. Sustainable Power is the exclusive licensee of the Rivera process, originally developed by US Sustainable Energy (USSE.PK).

Airbus and Boeing have announced radically different timelines for the widespread adoption of biofuels in commercial aviation. The vice-president and general counsel of Airbus projected an eight to ten year timeline for full certification of biofuels.  Boeing managing director of environmental strategy Billy Glover said that he expected to see fuel certification by 2013. Glover added that he expected algae to be the primary feedstock for aviation biofuels within 10 to 15 years.

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