Oil from a Poison Shrub Powers New Zealand Airline Flight

When fuel prices were higher, airlines were going to great lengths to save fuel. They stripped down their planes of all unnecessary weight and even flew slower. Planes do use a staggering amount of fuel, and regardless of the price, all that fossil fuel usage is extremely harmful to the environment.

Some airlines aren’t waiting for fuel prices to go back up to find more ways to save fuel. Air New Zealand has found a new biofuel it can mix with jet fuel to power their planes’ engines – and it comes from a poison shrub that grows wild all over the country.

From Reuters:

An Air New Zealand Boeing 747 flew for two hours on December 30 with one of its four engines powered by a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and jatropha oil, the airline said in a statement.

Jatropha is a plant that grows up to three meters and produces inedible fruits, which contain the oil. It is grown on arid and marginal land in India, parts of Africa and other countries, and has been touted for mass production for biofuels because it does not compete for resources with food crops.

Air New Zealand, which hopes to use one million barrels of biofuel a year, or about 10 percent of its fuel consumption, by 2013, said the flight was the world’s first commercial aviation test flight powered by jatropha.

Air New Zealand is working toward becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable airline, and with this innovation, they’re certainly well on their way. Though experts are warning that the use of jatropha oil poses problems because it’s toxic and yields are unreliable, the fuel mixture performed well and it’s certainly the right sort of thinking.

Link [Reuters]

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