Jumbo jet flies on nut-oil fuel
Source: Xinhua |
October 29, 2011, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A jumbo jet powered by fuel made from nut oil made a two-hour test flight yesterday as part of a US-Chinese renewable energy partnership.
The Boeing 747 landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at 9:30am after burning more than 10 tons of biofuel.
After the test, Zhang Hongying, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that biofuel is now ready to be used for commercial flights. The companies that jointly developed the fuel - Boeing Co, Honeywell UOP, Chinese oil company PetroChina Ltd and Air China Ltd - say a commercial biofuel should be available in three to five years.
Sun Li, general manager of the China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation, a large state-owned supplier of aviation fuel, said the fuel used was a 50-50 mix. Air China Vice President He Li said the composition and the burning efficiency of the fuel had been tested as well as its impact on the engines.
The biofuel used in the trial flight was produced from the seeds of tung trees. Shen Diancheng, vice president of PetroChina Company Ltd, said it has taken PetroChina 10 years to overcome the technical barriers of converting the oil extracted from the seeds into fuel that could power airplanes.
He also said the trees from which the seeds were harvested were grown on mountain hills and wasteland. Tung trees can be grown on barren mountain hills in China, and PetroChina had so far planted millions of acres of the trees, mainly in the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Jiangxi, he said.
The company expects to supply 60,000 tons of aviation gas produced from tung oil annually by 2014, Shen said.
Biofuel is the only available alternative energy for commercial aviation, as electric, solar and nuclear power are not suitable for this purpose, Sun said, adding that the large-scale use of biofuel might save the country's aviation industry from a shortage of crude oil.
Meanwhile, reducing emissions is critical for China's burgeoning civil aviation industry, said Fu Pengcheng, professor with the New Energy Research Center of China's University of Petroleum. China has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by the end of 2020.
As fuel is the chief source of emissions in the aviation industry, developing biofuel to replace traditional aviation fuel is a priority, Fu said.
The European Union (EU) has planned a "taxing scheme" that requires any airline landing or taking off inside the EU to take part in the bloc's emissions trading scheme starting from January 1, 2012.
The Boeing 747 landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at 9:30am after burning more than 10 tons of biofuel.
After the test, Zhang Hongying, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that biofuel is now ready to be used for commercial flights. The companies that jointly developed the fuel - Boeing Co, Honeywell UOP, Chinese oil company PetroChina Ltd and Air China Ltd - say a commercial biofuel should be available in three to five years.
Sun Li, general manager of the China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation, a large state-owned supplier of aviation fuel, said the fuel used was a 50-50 mix. Air China Vice President He Li said the composition and the burning efficiency of the fuel had been tested as well as its impact on the engines.
The biofuel used in the trial flight was produced from the seeds of tung trees. Shen Diancheng, vice president of PetroChina Company Ltd, said it has taken PetroChina 10 years to overcome the technical barriers of converting the oil extracted from the seeds into fuel that could power airplanes.
He also said the trees from which the seeds were harvested were grown on mountain hills and wasteland. Tung trees can be grown on barren mountain hills in China, and PetroChina had so far planted millions of acres of the trees, mainly in the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Jiangxi, he said.
The company expects to supply 60,000 tons of aviation gas produced from tung oil annually by 2014, Shen said.
Biofuel is the only available alternative energy for commercial aviation, as electric, solar and nuclear power are not suitable for this purpose, Sun said, adding that the large-scale use of biofuel might save the country's aviation industry from a shortage of crude oil.
Meanwhile, reducing emissions is critical for China's burgeoning civil aviation industry, said Fu Pengcheng, professor with the New Energy Research Center of China's University of Petroleum. China has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by the end of 2020.
As fuel is the chief source of emissions in the aviation industry, developing biofuel to replace traditional aviation fuel is a priority, Fu said.
The European Union (EU) has planned a "taxing scheme" that requires any airline landing or taking off inside the EU to take part in the bloc's emissions trading scheme starting from January 1, 2012.
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