Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand and its partners are blending biochemistry, advanced agriculture, and new world economic development to create new value chains and new jet fuel without the need to change aircraft engines or the aviation fuel infrastructure.
Progressive Fuel for Air Travel
Meet the Jatropha plant. It thrives in Southern and Eastern Africa and India. Jatropha produces seeds containing an inedible oil that can be turned into aviation fuel leading to a forty to fifty percent reduction in carbon emissions.
“Using biofuels is a major step in our plan to develop the most environmentally responsible airline.”
Jatropha is a perfect source. You can’t eat it, and it doesn’t need to grow on land that’s better used for agriculture. As a sustainable bio-jet feedstock source there is an undertaking that forests will not be cut down to grow more of it.
Air New Zealand has pledged to use one million barrels of sustainable fuel every year from 2013, and they say there will be enough stock of Jatropha to meet the target. In January 2009, Air New Zealand conducted a successful test flight using a blend of Jatropha oil and traditional kerosene fuel (Jet-A). The flight proved the suitability of environmentally progressive bio-jet fuels. But why stop with Jatropha? Air New Zealand is also researching the use of common algae as a biofuel source extracted from human sewage. If it’s broke, fix it. But fix it well; make it work for the long term. The best fix can come from anywhere; what literally fuels your business could come from a surprising blend.
Case Study
RagBag
RagBag
Transforming plastic trash gathered in India into fabric that's crafted into elegant carry bags for design-conscious Europeans.
NextPlays blog
#SB10 - Biolite wins Sustainable Innovation award
We're stoked that Biolite won SB10's Sustainable Innovation award, announced on the last day of the conference. Jonathan Cedar, co-inventor and the nascent company's CEO delivered a great presentation that made clear the significant impact that could be achieved if Biolite (and stoves like it) replace traditional wood-fired stoves in the developing world. The Biolite stove reinvents stoves used for home cooking in Asia, Africa and Latin America by making the burning process more efficient. The greater efficiency the less fuel is used and less smoke is generated. Less smoke, the less harm to the health of the cooks. Biolite has an additional feature; they've developed a process that converts a small part of the thermal energy into electricity. This means that users can recharge electrical devices while cooking, and that's got to be good for developing world users facing regular megacity brown outs, or for those who are off the grid completely.
Subscribe to our newsletter
twitter feeds