Jatropha-Based Fuel Arrives At Rolls-Royce Facility
The world's first commercial aviation flight powered by a
sustainable second-generation biofuel moved a step closer this
week. The jatropha-based fuel to power one of four engines on the
Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 arrived at the Rolls-Royce facility
in Derby, UK, for testing prior to the flight.
Preliminary data shows the fuel meets all required
specifications for use in commercial aviation and a technical team
led by Rolls Royce is now putting the fuel through a rigorous
testing process to further validate its specifications.
Subject to the fuel meeting the necessary scientific criteria, a
test flight on an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400, powered by
Rolls-Royce engines RB211, will take place in Auckland in December,
with an exact date to be confirmed once fuel testing is
complete.
The test flight is a joint initiative between Air New Zealand,
Boeing, Rolls-Royce and UOP,
announced in September 2007. The jatropha oil
Air New Zealand has sourced and refined for its test flight comes
from South Eastern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania) and
India. It was sourced from seeds grown on environmentally
sustainable farms.
Jatropha is a plant that grows to approximately three meters
high and produces seeds that contain inedible lipid oil that is
used to produce fuel. Each seed produces between 30 and 40 percent
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 partners have been non-negotiable about the three criteria
any environmentally sustainable fuel must meet for the test flight
program -- social, technical and commercial.
Firstly, the fuel source must be environmentally sustainable and
not compete with existing food resources. Secondly, the fuel must
be a drop-in replacement for traditional jet fuel and technically
be at least as good as the product used today. Finally, it should
be cost competitive with existing fuel supplies and be readily
available.
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.
The test flight partners engaged Terasol Energy, a leader in
sustainable jatropha development projects, to independently source
and certify that the jatropha-based fuel for the flight met all
sustainability criteria.
Once received from Terasol Energy, the jatropha oil was refined
through a collaborative effort between Air New Zealand, Boeing and
leading refining technology developer UOP, utilizing UOP technology
to produce jet fuel from renewable sources that can serve as a
direct replacement to traditional petroleum-based fuel.
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