Subscription Center
Jan 30, 2009 04:00 PM | 1
Japan Airlines today flew a Boeing 747-300 with one engine burning a blend of biofuel and regular Jet A. The 90-minute flight from Haneda Airport in Tokyo relied primarily on a new form of jet biofuel derived from camelina, a weedy flower native to Europe, that can be alternated with wheat crops.
Chief pilot Keiji Kobayashi said in a postflight statement that there was no difference in performance between the engines running on regular jet fuel and the one burning the blend.
A consortium of airlines, aircraft manufacturers and engine makers has now tested four different biofuel feedstocks in an effort to assess whether biofuels could play a role in reducing dependence on petroleum-based jet fuel, both to combat climate change and lower fuel costs.
"We're going to assess the data collected in flight," Boeing spokesperson Jim Proulx says, "and also be doing engine system teardowns to examine and make sure everything looks like it is supposed to look after a normal flight."
One issue might be wear and tear on the various gaskets and seals in an engine; biofuels can have different interactions than petroleum-based jet fuel. But no such issues have been identified to date.
The blend (84 percent oil from camelina, nearly 16 percent from jatropha, a poisonous shrub from Central America, and the rest from algae) used on this flight was refined by UOP, a division of Honeywell, which can now transform almost any plant-derived oil into fuel that emits less smoke and can deliver more power to the engines than petroleum-derived jet fuel.
The next step will be certifying jets to fly on the stuff. The American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTM) has already certified a synthetic fuel made from coal by South Africa's SASOL and the biofuel used in this flight—synthetic paraffinic kerosene—has the same chemistry. "Once ASTM sets and confirms standards, then the [Federal Aviation Administration] approves," Proulx says. But "we don't have a timeline on that."
Credit: Courtesy of JAL
Tags:
Jet A,
jatropha,
JAL,
jet biofuel,
camelina,
biofuel,
plant,
jet fuel
More News Blog:
Next: Super Bowl Alert: Could California take away your energy-hogging plasma TV?
Previous: Lifesavers: NOAA pushes better air, land and sea rescue beacons
See what we're tweeting about
Horganism Do psychopaths deserve our sympathy? http://t.co/JuW5eREXjB
dbiello net loss: how we continually forget what the oceans really used to be like http://t.co/HCnZaXa4bC
JenLucPiquant Looking at Art Through Different Eyes—Like a Bee. Charles Falco's IR (and UV) photography http://t.co/i7j5yC40YS via @NautilusMag
Deadline: Jul 15 2013
Reward: $5,000 USD
SciBX: Science-Business eXchange, a joint publication from the makers
Deadline: Aug 31 2013
Reward: $100,000 USD
The Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer’s Initiative (GBFAI) is launching the 2013 Geoffrey Beene Global NeuroDiscovery Challenge whose
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
1 Comments
Add CommentFor more information on the flight, and the series of test flights underway across the aviation industry, check out http://www.enviro.aero/biofuels.aspx
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this