Japan Airlines to test bio-jet fuel blend
17 Dec 2008
Japan Airlines will soon be testing a biofuel product on its aircraft when it operates a 747-300 test flight from Tokyo Haneda on 30 January in conjunction with Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell.
The JAL flight will test biofuel primarily derived from camelina plants. The fuel to be tested on one of the aircraft's four JT9D engines will be a blend of 50% biofuel and 50% traditional jet fuel.
The biofuel will be a mixture of three second-generation feedstocks: Camelina (84%), jatropha (under 16%) and algae (under 1%).
The flight will be the first using fuel derived from camelina and the first to use a combination of three feedstocks. It also will be the first biofuel test flight on an aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.
The flight is expected to last about 1 hour.
JAL Environmental Affairs VP Yasunori Abe said, "In the air, we will check the engine's performance during normal and nonnormal flight operations, which will include quick accelerations and decelerations and engine shutdown and restart."
The camelina product will be delivered by Sustainable Oils, a producer and marketer of renewable, environmentally clean, and high-value camelina-based biofuels. It said the demonstration flight will make JAL the first Asian carrier to fly on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks and the first airline to use camelina-based bio-jet fuel.
The fuel for the JAL demo flight was successfully converted from plant-based crude oil to biojet fuel by Honeywell's UOP, a refining technology developer, using proprietary hydro-processing technology to complete the fuel conversion. The fuel was then blended with typical jet fuel to create the 50 percent biofuel blend.
Subsequent laboratory testing by Boeing, UOP, and several independent laboratories verified the biofuel met the industry criteria for jet fuel performance.
Ground-based jet engine performance testing by Pratt & Whitney of similar fuels further established that the biofuel blend either meets or exceeds the performance criteria in place for commercial aviation jet fuel today.
"We're proud to have been selected to participate in this historic event," said Tom Todaro, CEO of Sustainable Oils. "We are dedicated to growing the market for camelina across the United States and around the world. This flight will help growers see the tremendous potential for camelina as a renewable energy feedstock."
According to Sustainable, Camelina is well suited to be a sustainable biofuel crop, as it naturally contains high oil content; its oils are low in saturated fat; it is drought resistant and requires less fertilizer and herbicides. Most importantly, it is an excellent rotation crop with wheat, and it can also grow in marginal land. It does not displace other crops or compete as a food source.
It is estimated that the state of Montana alone could support between 2 and 3 million acres of camelina, generating 200 to 300 million gallons of oil each year.
"Camelina is a dedicated energy crop that has the energy properties we need to create a new source of aviation jet fuel," said Billy Glover, managing director, Environmental Strategy, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "We're focused on creating sustainable plant-derived jet fuel blends that meet or exceed all of the current jet fuel specification properties, but not at the expense of food crops or water resources. Camelina is a solid match in that regard."
The approximately 1 hour demo flight out of Haneda Airport, Tokyo will be operated by JAL staff with no passengers onboard. It will be the final stage in a 12 month process to conclusively confirm the sustainable biofuel's operational performance capabilities and potential commercial viability.
The JAL biofuel flight is expected to bring the airline industry significantly closer to finding a suitable sustainable biofuel that will help reduce the impact of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) generated by aviation, while also reducing the industry's reliance on traditional petroleum-based fuels.
Camelina sativa (false flax), is a flowering plant in the Brassicaceae family, which includes other oilseeds such as mustard and rapeseed. Native to Northern Europe and Central Asia, the plant also thrives in the plains areas of the United States, including Montana.
Sustainable Oils officially launched its camelina growers program in the state last year, and is aggressively expanding the number of growers and acres planted.
