British Airways and Rolls-Royce have finally gone public on a programme to investigate alternative fuels that has been much rumoured for the last few months. This one's important - Rolls-Royce in particular has been scathing of any activity related to non-sustainable biofuels. Last week I reported this on our premium news service Air Transport Intelligence: Director engineering and technology, Colin Smith, told a pre-Farnborough airshow briefing today: "We are not willing to work on biofuels that are not sustainable. That has been unpopular sometimes - we refused to do one demonstration because of that.
"We need to create a biofuel from biomass that does not compete with foodstuffs. It is just barking mad to compete with foodstuffs."
He adds that the company will also only work on projects aimed at yielding a "drop-in" fuel that could be used as a direct replacement in existing engines. "And they also must not absorb water," he adds.
Smith says: "Most of the current biofuels are just plain daft from an aerospace point of view. They only work down to about -5ºC."
He notes that kerosene has numerous desirable properties and
is not easy to replace, but says: "In a few more years you will be able to
manipulate any biomass for this purpose. We will work on any biofuel if it is
sustainable."
The full text of the BA/RR announcement is below.
The in-depth study will seek to
identify practical alternatives to the current industry-standard fuel kerosene,
with the potential to make real reductions to the carbon footprint of aircraft.
The companies will initiate a
joint tender process, inviting suppliers to offer alternative fuel samples for
testing on a Rolls-Royce RB211 engine from a British Airways Boeing 747. The
tests will be carried out on an indoor engine test bed at the Rolls-Royce
facility in Derby, UK.
Testing the engine in the
controlled environment of a Rolls-Royce test bed enables more accurate data to
be gathered than would be possible on an actual flight because additional
instrumentation can be used and performance and emissions will not be affected
by other external factors.
Following the tender process,
there will be a selection of up to four alternative fuels, which will undergo
laboratory testing before being delivered to Rolls-Royce in the new year. Each
company will be asked to supply up to 60,000 litres of their alternative fuel.
This will be followed by
intensive trials, during which the aero-engine will be powered by the
alternative fuels and its performance compared to running on conventional
kerosene. In each case, the engine will be operated through its full range of power
settings including idle, acceleration, take off and cruise.
Testing is expected to be
complete by the end of March 2009, after which the results will be analysed and
reported.
Ric Parker, Director of Research
and Technology at Rolls-Royce, said: "The key criteria for the selection of the
alternative fuels will be their suitability, sustainability and industrial
capability.
"It is critical that the fuel can
not only do the job required of it, but can also offer a CO2 benefit
and be produced without a detrimental impact to food, land or water. There must
also be clear evidence of the potential for mass production and global
distribution of an alternative fuel to support the world's aviation industry."
Jonathon Counsell, Head of Environment at British
Airways, said: " We are delighted to be leading this study with Rolls-Royce.
British Airways was the first airline to
set fuel efficiency targets, leading us to improve out fuel efficiency by 28
per cent since 1990. We are now well on our way to our target of a 30 per cent
improvement by 2010. Recently, we announced a further 25 per cent improvement
target on fuel efficiency by 2025 compared with 2005. Should the tests we are
undertaking with Rolls-Royce be successful, the potential for bringing us
closer to a greener fuel alternative that will help the aviation industry reduce its carbon footprint is
enormous.
The results of the study will be
made public so the whole industry, its customers and most importantly, the
environment, can benefit."
Ends
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