Virgin Group Seeks Airline Biofuel as ASTM Prepares to Approve New Standards

Airlines in the Virgin Group are collaborating to attempt to develop and share aviation biofuels at their common port of Los Angeles International airport.

The airlines – V Australia, Virgin America, and Virgin Atlantic –  have significant stage-length operations at Los Angeles that would permit them to maximize bio-derived jet fuel deployment at a single, shared location.

"We're working with the other Virgin airlines - Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic - to look at what we can do in LA," said David White (News - Alert), the Sustainability and Climate Change Manager for Virgin Australia, which includes long-haul affiliate V Australia.

"That's one synergy which we're concentrating on because we're all flying into LA. We're checking out 'What can we do there?'"Collaboration with other airlines or biofuel consortia are also options for Virgin Group, he said.

Back in February 2008, a Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet flew between London and Amsterdam using fuel derived from a mixture of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts. Virgin's Boeing (News - Alert) 747 had one of its four engines connected to an independent biofuel tank that it said could provide 20 percent of the engine's power. The three other engines were capable of powering the plane on conventional fuel, had there been a problem

 At the time, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson said the flight marked a "vital breakthrough" for the entire airline industry. "This pioneering flight will enable those of us who are serious about reducing our carbon emissions to go on developing the fuels of the future," he told BBC News.

But Branson said fully commercial biofuel flights were likely to use feedstock such as algae rather than the mix used on the passenger-less flight.

He proved to be prescient.

This week, in Washington, D.C., Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S.-based technical standards group ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials) has given preliminary approval to airlines to use a blend of traditional fuel and biofuel from inedible plants.

Final approval of the new BIO SPK fuel standard is expected no earlier than July 1. Under the standard, fuel processed from organic waste or non-food materials, such as algae or wood chips, may comprise as much as 50 percent of the total fuel burned to power passenger flights, Air Transport Association spokesman Steve Lott and a Boeing Co. official told Bloomberg (News - Alert).

General Electric Co., the world’s biggest jet engine maker by sales last year, said at a 50 percent blend level it doesn’t expect to see any impact on engines or operability

The real winners of this type of regulatory breakthrough will be technology companies involved in the production of aviation biofuels,” said Harry Boyle, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London. “The biotech-biofuels business models of Amyris Inc., Codexis Inc., Gevo Inc, and Solazyme Inc. all are making claims to these types of new markets.”

For more information, visit the Virgin Group website.

 

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Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin