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Home | Green Culture | Air New Zealand Completed First Commercial Biofuel Test Flight

Air New Zealand Completed First Commercial Biofuel Test Flight

31 December, 2008 03:15:00

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Air New Zealand has become the world's first commercial aviation test flight powered by a sustainable second-generation biofuel.

Tuesday's flight was a joint venture by Air New Zealand, airplane maker Boeing, engine maker Rolls Royce and biofuel specialist UOP Llc, a unit of Honeywell International.

During a two-hour flight to and from Auckland International Airport, the Air New Zealand crew sought to test how the fuel, made from jatropha plants and blended 50:50 with Jet A1 fuel in the tank of one of four Rolls-Royce engines on a 747-400, stood up to use at high altitudes and in other demanding conditions.

Air New Zealand plans to meet at least 10 per cent of its annual fuel needs from second-generation biofuels by 2013.

A Virgin Atlantic test flight in February used fuel derived from a blend of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.

Continental Airlines has said on Jan. 7 it will operate a test flight out of Houston using a special blend of half conventional fuel and half biofuel with ingredients derived from algae and jatropha plants.

Jatropha is a plant that produces seeds that contain inedible lipid oil that is used to produce fuel. Each seed produces 30-40% of its mass in oil and jatropha can be grown in a range of difficult conditions, including arid and otherwise non-arable areas, leaving prime areas available for food crops.

The criteria for sourcing the jatropha oil required that the land was neither forest land nor virgin grassland within the previous two decades. The quality of the soil and climate is such that the land is not suitable for the vast majority of food crops. Furthermore, the farms are rain-fed and not mechanically irrigated.

[source: Air New Zealand]