Overview on aviation biofuels: cost-competitive, sustainable, drop-in fuels 2-3 years away

A concise but comprehensive report on the state of aviation biofuels was published in Reuters. In the report, Air New Zealand chief pilot said that biofuels will need to be environmentally sustainable, be a drop-in fuel replacement for kerosene and be cost competitive with current aviation fuels.

The CEO of Terasol Energy, which supplied jatropha oil for recent test flights by Continental Airlines and Japan Air Lines, said that the airlines are acutely sensitive to using biofuels that do not compete with the food supply chain for productive land, and opposed deforestation. The  director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, said that, “We have to be realistic about timescales, but two or three years ago it looked 20 years away. Now, I think we are two or three years away.”

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