A Weed-Powered Passenger Jet
Read the full story in Technology Review.
On December 3, a Boeing 747 belonging to Air New Zealand is scheduled to take off from Auckland, New Zealand, powered in part by a new type of jet fuel made from a weed. A mixture of equal parts biofuel and conventional fuel will run one of the plane’s engines. The biofuel, which could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, was developed by UOP, a Honeywell company that is a major supplier of technology for petroleum refining.
It’s not the first time that an airliner has been powered by biofuel. What’s new is the source of the biofuel: jatropha, a plant that, unlike current sources of biofuels, is not a food crop and can be grown in marginal agricultural land. In the past year, biofuels production has come under fire for contributing to a sharp rise in food prices by diverting grain and other foods for use in fuel. Jatropha provides a potential alternative to soybean oil and palm oil, which are now used as sources of biofuels.