Partnership Aims To Promote Local Production Of Sustainable Jet Fuels

Airbus and key Malaysian partners have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to assess local solutions for sustainable bio-mass production in Malaysia. The aim is to determine the most suitable feedstocks to ensure that any future jet fuel production in the region is based only on sustainable solutions. The first assessment is expected to be completed by December 2014.

Other partners include AMIC (Aerospace Malaysia Innovation Center), MiGHT (Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High technology), UPM (Universiti Putra Malaysia), CIRAD (a French research center working with developing countries to tackle international agricultural and development issues) and BioTech Corp (Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation).
 
The science advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, chairman of MIGHT, BioTech Corp and AMIC, Prof Emeritus Dato’ Sri Dr. Zakri bin Abdul Hamid, said "The Center of Excellence will help us to improve the understanding of the nature of aviation biofuel commercialization in Malaysia, to identify the opportunities and challenges, and to evaluate the possibility of social, economic, market and technology change and its cost, obstacles and challenges.”

“We believe that the research will have positive effects on energy conservation and CO2 emissions reduction in the Malaysian and South-East Asia aviation sector", said Prof. Datuk Dr. Mohd Fauzi Hj Ramlan, Vice Chancellor of UPM.

“South-East Asia is a wide and productive region in terms of biomass. The creation of a Center of Excellence in Malaysia, with local partners is an opportunity to ensure that any selected bio-mass satisfies strict sustainability criteria”, said Frédéric Eychenne, Airbus New Energies Program Manager. “According to our latest Global Market Forecast, Asia-Pacific will lead in world traffic by 2032.Today’s MoU is part of our engagement to support traffic growth whilst reducing aviation’s footprint on the environment”.

Airbus supports the certification and development of commercial quantities of sustainable alternative fuels for aviation through promoting innovative regional projects world-wide. To date, Airbus has formed partnerships in Europe, America, Australia, Middle-East and China.

FMI: www.airbusgroup.com