Air New Zealand Boeing 747
Watch the Jatropha video
The Air New Zealand test flight is a joint initiative with partners Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Honeywell's UOP in commercial aviation's drive for more sustainable air travel for future generations.
The Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400, powered one of its four Rolls-Royce RB211 engines with a biofuel blend derived from a second generation biofuel plant - Jatropha Curcas.
Jatropha is a plant that produces seeds that contain inedible lipid oil that is used to produce fuel. Each seed produces 30-40% 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.
Air New Zealand and its partners have been non-negotiable about the three criteria any environmentally sustainable fuel must meet for the test flight programme. These are 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, utilising 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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