Japan Airlines undertakes biofuel powered test flight
Jan 31, 2009 Green Technologies, Information of the Day
Japan Airlines
Japan Airlines (JAL) became the latest airline to conduct a demonstration flight using a biofuel blend. An approximately one and half-hour demo flight using a JAL-owned Boeing 747-300 aircraft, had a blend of 50% biofuel and 50% traditional Jet-A jet fuel powering one of the 4 engines.
The biofuel component tested was a mixture of three second-generation biofuel feedstocks: camelina (84%), jatropha (under 16%), and algae (under 1%). While biofuels derived from corn have been blamed for food crisis by competing with food crops , there are skeptics for even the second generation of biofuel which may not be as carbon neutral as they appear at first glance.
Virgin Atlantic had tested biofuels in jet engines in February 2008 while Continental Airlines and Air New Zealand had done their own tests recently. Even in today’s era of low oil prices, it is heartening to see the efforts of these airlines to test alternative fuel sources. Air travel contributes about 2% to overall emission ofgreenhouse gases.
Japan Airlines had a number of partners: Sustainable Oils, Inc., a U.S.-based provider of renewable, environmentally clean, and high-value camelina-based fuels sourced the camelina used in the JAL demo flight. Terasol Energy sourced and provided the jatropha oil, and the algae oil was provided by Sapphire Energy. Nikki Universal, a joint venture of UOP and JGC, supplied the biofuel used in the flight, which had been produced in the U.S by UOP.
Read the full press release here.
Tags: biofuel, Camelina, Jaan Airlines, Jatropha, Jet fuel
9:07 pm on February 9th, 2009 Reply to this comment!
Nice article, very interesting, thanks !