New Zealand: Biofuel likely as Kiwis go green

AIR New Zealand is reducing carbon emissions with a series of innovative programs likely to include the groundbreaking use of biofuels.

The airline is working with aircraft and engine manufacturers to explore new technologies and alternative fuels.

“We’ve had two or three projects under way looking at biofuels,” chief executive Rob Fyfe said this week. “We’ve got an announcement coming up in a couple of weeks in that regard but we don’t want to let the cat out of the bag at the moment on that one.

“We’ve still got a couple of elements of the deal to lock down before we’re in a position to talk formally about it.”
Biofuels are of keen interest to airlines and manufacturers, but one problem had been that the energy they produced – their calorific content – was not high enough to power jet engines.

But Mr Fyfe says this is no longer the case: new technologies are emerging to produce biofuel with a much higher calorific content than traditional biodiesels.

“Some of the biofuels that are being produced now have an absolutely identical specification to the existing petroleum fuels, with the one exception that they’re not petroleum,” he said.

“But if you look at every other chemical characteristic, they can effectively make an equivalent fuel.”

The potential use of biofuels is among a range of environmentally friendly initiatives the Kiwi carrier is exploring.

The Australian