BA to use garbage for jet fuel

British Airways

British Airways are joining forces with American bio-energy firm Solena to develop Europe's first clean jet fuel factory in London.

500,000 tonnes of landfill waste will be turned into 16 million gallons of carbon-neutral aviation fuel each year when the plant is completed in 2014, producing enough fuel to power double the amount of all BA's flights out of City Airport.

Such is the cleanliness of this garbage biofuel that it produces 95 percent less carbon the traditional kerosene which translates to almost 50,000 cars off the road. The environmental benefits don't end there. Alongside the reduction in carbon from the jet fuel itself, it will also cut the methane produced from landfill and generate 20 megawatts of electricity per year as a byproduct.

1200 new jobs

The development will also provide 1200 new jobs in the East End of London.

The project is seen as a huge leap forward for the aviation industry as biofuel development in the industry has been notoriously difficult due to technical problems such as the intensely high energy capacity of jet fuel and the extreme cold temperatures under which it must operate.

What's unique about this biofuel is it will not require any fossil fuel to be added to it, unlike the biofuel use when BA's rival Virgin conducted the first commercial flight powered by biofuel in February 2008.

Environmental concerns

BA's chief executive, Willie Walsh, believes the scheme will help BA to meet its target to cut net carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. "We believe it will lead to the production of a real sustainable alternative to jet kerosene," he said yesterday. The London Mayor, Boris Johnson, is also behind the plan.

BA and Solena insist that the biofuel will be powered by garbage alone and will not source power from biomass crops grown specifically for fuel.

But concerns remain among environmentalists. "Biofuels for cars were meant to be a way of using waste cooking oil, but fuel companies ended up taking food away from the poor and trashing rain forests to make way for biofuel crop plantations," said Kenneth Richter, the biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth told Business Week.

Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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