British Airways Agrees to Buy $500 Million of Biofuel over Next Ten Years

British Airways has just agreed to the world’s largest, advanced biofuel commitment made by any airline. In its drive to reduce its carbon emissions it has pledged to buy over $500 million worth of biofuels over the next ten years from GreenSky London, a low carbon jet fuel production project.

The GreenSky London project is a joint venture between British Airways and Solena, an American bioenergy company. The two began their partnership back in 2009 and have been working ever since to develop what will become Europe’s first ever sustainable jet fuel production plant.

Rober Do, the president and CEO of Solena, said that, “our GreenSky London project will provide clean, sustainable fuels at market competitive prices that will help address British Airways’ sustainability goals.”

Related Article: Algal Biofuel is Currently Unsustainable, but Technology can Change That

Each year the plant will accept around 500,000 tons of locally sourced organic waste that would normally be dumped in landfills. Solena’s high temperature gasification technology will then be used to convert the waste into a synthesis gas, which can then be cleaned and converted into liquid hydrocarbons using Fischer-Tropsch reactors. The 500,000 tons of initial waste is converted into 50,000 tons of aviation biofuel and 50,000 tons of bionaphtha and biodiesel.

Work has already begun on the GreenSky facility and is expected to be finished by 2015.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com