ANZ biofuel flight postponed to mid-to-late December

The world's first sustainable biofuel flight now is expected to take place as early as Dec. 18 or possibly over Christmas with a jatropha-based fuel powering one engine on an Air New Zealand 747-400 on a 3-hr. gate-to-gate flight from Auckland. The fuel is a 50/50 blend of standard Jet A1 and synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from jatropha oil.

The test flight is an initiative among ANZ, Boeing, Rolls-Royce and UOP, a Honeywell company. It had been expected to occur on Dec. 3 but was postponed following the loss of an ANZ A320 on Nov. 27. That aircraft had been leased to XL Airways Germany since May 2006 and was being test flown prior to its scheduled Dec. 1 return to ANZ.

According to Chris Lewis, company specialist-fuels at Rolls-Royce, "laboratory testing showed the final blend has excellent properties meeting, and in many cases exceeding, the stringent technical requirements for fuels used in civil and defense aircraft." It meets the essential requirement of being a "drop-in" fuel, meaning its properties will be virtually indistinguishable from conventional Jet A1 used in commercial aviation today.

Importantly, the jatropha oil ANZ has sourced and refined for its test flight comes from South Eastern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania) and India from seeds grown on environmentally sustainable farms. Jatropha is a weedy plant that grows to approximately 3 m. high and 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 in arid and otherwise nonarable areas, leaving prime areas available for food crops.

According to Sebastien Remy, head of Airbus Alternative Fuels Research Programs, jatropha's oil yield can vary dramatically from 1 ton of seeds per hectare per year to up to 10 tons for a mature plantation in good soil conditions. That latter yield would translate into an area half the size of Tasmania to supply all Australia's jet fuel needs of 5 million tons annually.

Partners in the ANZ test flight have been nonnegotiable about the three criteria any environmentally sustainable fuel must meet for their program: Social, technical and commercial. The fuel source must be environmentally sustainable and not compete with existing food resources, must be a drop-in replacement and technically must be at least as good as the product used today. Terasol Energy, a leading producer of clean crude oil from next-generation feedstocks. sourced and certified that the jatropha-based fuel for the flight met all sustainability criteria.

The pilots in command of the test flight are expected to be ANZ 747 Fleet Manager Keith Pattie, Boeing test pilot Thomas Imrich and ANZ Chief Pilot and GM-Airline Operations David Morgan.