KLM takes first steps into biofuel powered passenger flight

For those who rejoice in the heady fragrance of kerosene so intrinsic to a trip to the airport, the end is nigh. Well, not exactly nigh, but a definite possibility, sometime in the future.

An invite-only event in November saw KLM usher 40 intrepid souls -- scribes, politicians, execs -- aboard a 747 at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for the first biofuel-powered passenger flight.

Okay, it remained seven-eighths under the power of standard fossil-sourced avgas. But this was nevertheless history in the making, with one of the craft's four engines running a 50:50 blend of avgas and biofuel.

It's sourced from a plant called camelina -- aka gold-of-pleasure, false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame, Siberian oilseed -- for which, it seems, there's a lot to be said.

Looking to order 150,000 litres of biofuel for military aircraft testing, the US Defence Energy Support Centre told media in a statement it went with camelina-based fuel because "it does not compete with food crops, has been proven to reduce carbon emissions by more than 80 per cent, and has already been successfully tested in a commercial airline test flight."

It added: "Camelina has a naturally high oil content, is drought tolerant and requires less fertiliser and herbicides. It is an excellent rotation crop with wheat, and it can also grow on marginal land."

Much of which means when it's not being turned into fuel, it's a hardy weed.

Commercial aviation biofuel isn't a new idea. With the industry under scrutiny for some years on its greenhouse gas output, a number of carriers including Japan Airlines, Air New Zealand and Virgin have experimented with it.

Boeing has claimed its experiments have yielded superior fuel-efficiency results to conventional jet fuels. "The initial results show a technical performance that is better than traditional kerosene," told The Times Online. JAL has made similar claims.

Nevertheless, questions hang over its future in aviation. There's no doubt using it would ease the social and political pressure. But it hasn't even been certified by regulators for commercial fuelling, and even after that happens it's likely to be some years before it finds the economies of scale to become commercially viable.

That's likely to come with the help of several species. Other plants being looked at for the purpose include jatropha, which shares many of camelina's qualities, and algae.

Algae shows the most promise for its superior yield per acre, which The Times Online reports that Boeing has suggested could reach ten times the land plants' 150-200 gallons per acre (that translates into 700-900 litres per acre, or 1700-2200 litres per hectare).

Then come more technical questions. While they work on a half-and-half blend without modification, turbine engines would require extensive -- read: expensive -- reworking to run it on its own. Not a cost most airlines would countenance in the current tight commercial environment.

All of which might make it a long-term proposition but for Europe's pending introduction of an emissions trading scheme in 2012, which will bump up the cost of doing nothing.

Of one thing they can be assured: turbulence ahead.

Many thanks, incidentally, to those thoughtful ecobloggers with sideline horticultural skills and spellcheckers who, figuring KLM and most of the mainstream media must have made a mistake, decided they must have meant it was made "from camellia, an inedible hedge plant". Now there's whole new world of possibility for airport fragrances...

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