Continental Airlines says a biofuel trial flight conducted back in January produced significant greenhouse emissions savings and increased fuel efficiency.
The American airline said its 90-minute test flight used a 50-50 blend of biologically-derived fuel and standard jet fuel in one engine only of a two-engine Boeing 737-800.
The biofuel came from oil extracted from Jatropha nuts and algae. The airline says that these were both sustainable, second-generation sources that did not adversely impact food crops, water resources or forests.
Continental estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from the green fuel were 60 to 80 per cent lower than those of the conventional fuel, when the full life-cycle emissions of the two are compared.
At the same time, the blend showed a 1.1 per cent increase in fuel efficiency over standard jet fuel.
Continental is one of a number of airlines including Virgin, Japan Airlines and Air New Zealand trialling biofuels. Continental’s trial extended the reliance on an alternative fuel from previous test flights – others have involved blends in one engine of four-engine aircraft.
While the use of biofuels in aviation has the potential to cut the fast-growing greenhouse emissions in the sector, the main driver of these airlines’ biofuel initiatives is to reduce exposure to volatile conventional fuel prices, hostage to the international oil price.
source: carbonpositive
