This summer a United Airlines flight from LA to San Francisco will take off with fuel containing a mix of animal fats and farm waste, in what will be the first time a domestic airline has run a regular passenger flight using an alternative jet fuel.
The airline has also just announced that it is to make a $30 million investment in one of the largest producers of aviation biofuels, Fulcrum BioEnergy. Commenting to the New York Times, Debbie Hammel, a senior resource specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who focuses on biofuel, said: “There is a significant role for biofuels within the aviation sector, specifically for reducing carbon emissions.”
In Brief
- Fulcrum has developed a way of converting municipal waste into aviation fuel that it says can cut an airline’s carbon emissions by 80 percent compared with traditional jet fuel.
- Fulcrum says it can produce its biofuel for considerably cheaper than $1 a gallon. United has said that its deal with Fulcrum is competitive with the price of traditional jet fuel.
- In 2014, United’s fleet consumed 3.9 billion gallons of fuel.
In Depth
- Read the original article, ‘United Airlines invests $30M in Fulcrum BioEnergy; inks $1.5B+ in aviation biofuels contracts‘ on Biofuels Digest.
- Discuss the issues raised in the article on Outbounding.
- Follow Biofuels Digest on Twitter.
- Download the NRDC’s 2014 report “Aviation Biofuels Sustainability Survey“.
