Virgin Atlantic flies jumbo jet powered by biofuel

By The Associated Press

LONDON: Nuts picked from the Amazon rainforests helped fuel Sunday the first commercial airline flight partly powered by renewable energy.

Virgin Atlantic flew a jumbo jet from London to Amsterdam, with one of its four fuel tanks filled with a blend including babassu oil and coconut oil, to show that it could produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels. "This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected," Richard Branson, the airline's president, said before the Boeing 747-400 took to the air. "The demonstration flight will give us crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint."

The flight, which landed safely in the Netherlands, carried pilots and several technicians but no passengers. The Boeing 747, which reached a planned maximum altitude of 7,620 meters, or 25,000 feet, had one unmodified engine running on a mixture of about 25 percent biofuel and the rest standard jet kerosene.

Fuel accounts for 30 percent to 50 percent of airlines' operating costs, and aviation contributes about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. That is expected to rise to 3 percent by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Some analysts praised the test flight as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt by Branson, and noted it came as scientists were questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels.

"It's great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation," said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London brokerage firm Dawnay Day Lockhart. "But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming." A Virgin Atlantic spokesman, Paul Charles, predicted this biofuel would produce much less carbon than regular jet fuel, but said it would take weeks to analyze the data from the flight. It is just the latest example of how the world's airlines are jumping on the environmental bandwagon by trying to find ways of reducing aviation's carbon footprint.

These efforts have included finding alternative jet fuels, developing engines that burn existing fuels more slowly and changing the way planes land. The experiment by Virgin Atlantic and its partners - Boeing, General Electric and Imperium Renewables - also came at a time when high oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown are causing consolidation in the airline industry.

Aircraft engines cause noise pollution and emit gases and particulates that reduce air quality and contribute to global warming and global dimming, where dust and ash from natural and industrial sources block the sun to create a cooling effect. About a year ago, the European Commission said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation accounted for about 3 percent of the total in the European Union and had increased by 87 percent since 1990 as air travel became less expensive.

Charles said the Virgin Boeing 747-400 jet and its engines did not have to be redesigned to use biofuel on the test flight. He said carbon emissions on a normal flight were generally three times the fuel burned, and that technical engineers on the test flight would take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a rush to develop biofuels, especially ethanol from corn and feedstock like switchgrass and wood chips, as a substitute for gasoline. But recent scientific studies have found that most biofuels cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full emissions costs of producing these "green" fuels are considered. To support biofuel development, a large amount of natural land is being converted to cropland globally. The destruction of natural ecosystems releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, and deprives the planet of natural sponges that absorb carbon emissions. In addition, cropland absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Airbus, the European plane maker, tested gas-to-liquid fuel this month on a superjumbo A380 in conjunction with Rolls-Royce. The information gleaned from the test flight will be evaluated by Virgin, Boeing and General Electric. Boeing will ask other carriers to do tests, which could lead to biofuel-powered commercial flights within five years, according to Billy Glover, Virgin's environment director.

Virgin and General Electric tested a number of different biofuels produced by Imperium Renewables of Seattle before choosing coconut and babassu because they were suitable in initial tests and would not compete with staple food supplies or cause deforestation, the airline said. Babassu nuts are harvested from palms by local workers from the Amazonian rainforest. "Biofuels are not a panacea. There are a whole load of issues," said John Strickland, director of the aviation specialist JLS Consulting of London. "Some have the issue of substituting food crops and they don't necessarily produce enough, in terms of volume, to replace kerosene."

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Rabu 27 February 2008)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)

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