Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-biggest airline, plans to be the first carrier to test biofuels on regular passenger flights as the industry seeks ways to lower carbon-dioxide emissions and save on fuel purchases.
Kerosene derived from plant oils will make up 50 percent of the fuel mix for one engine on an Airbus SAS A321 airliner flying on the Hamburg-Frankfurt route, Joachim Buse, head of Lufthansa’s aviation-biofuel program, said today in Berlin. The test will begin in April and last for six months if approved by regulators, he said.
Biofuel made by Finland’s only petroleum refiner Neste Oil Oyj will power the flights after the companies signed an accord, Neste said today in a separate statement today. British Airways Plc and Continental Airlines Inc. are among the carriers trying to curb emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
“The race to put the right biofuel in commercial flights is ‘taking off,’” said Harry Boyle, a biofuels industry analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.
British Airways and Continental have been making test flights powered by biofuels made from plants such as jatropha and carmelina. Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa plans to use the fuels in its entire fleet by 2020 though it won’t exceed a mix of 5 percent to 10 percent because of short supply, Buse said.
“We now have a fuel that combines reliable and powerful propulsion and which, unlike fossil fuels, has a positive CO2 balance,” Buse said. “It doesn’t look like we’ll have an alternative to combustion in jet engines for the next 40 to 50 years.”
Fuel expenses
Boeing Co., the world’s second-biggest maker of commercial aircraft, forecasts that airlines will derive 1 percent of their fuel from plants by 2015. Jet-fuel prices in northwest Europe have gained 20 percent since Aug. 24, Bloomberg data show. Lufthansa said Oct. 28 that it expects expenses for fuel after hedging contracts to jump 15 percent in 2011 from a projected 5.2 billion euros ($6.8 billion) this year.
The bio-synthetic kerosene produced by Espoo-based Neste is lighter and contains as much as 4 percent more energy than regular kerosene, Buse said. The test program will cost 6.6 million euros, of which Lufthansa will pay 4.1 million euros, he said.
Neste started production of the low-carbon diesel at its 550 million-euro Singapore plant in November. The factory, the world’s largest clean diesel plant, can make 800,000 metric tons of the substance per year, according to Neste.
The European Union will include the aviation industry in its EU Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012. This will cap the industry’s annual emissions, requiring the airlines to eliminate 212 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2012 and 208 million tons from 2013 to 2020, according to New Energy Finance.
