FW: Finnish oil company Neste Oil's 'NExBTL' (Next Generation Biomass to Liquid), biofuel is being successfully tested as aviation fuel

[Chris Hodrien]

 

Report

Aviation biofuels  

Thursday 6 October 2011

 

Flying green

 

The renewable energy sector has its success stories. When it comes to ‘second-generation’ biofuels, Finnish oil company Neste Oil seems to be moving in the right direction. It is gradually but fairly quickly expanding its production capacity of its NExBTL (Next Generation Biomass to Liquid), a biofuel that is at least partially, though still not entirely, made from waste products. Neste has said it wants to move out of the food chain altogether by 2020.

 

At this moment, NExBTL is being successfully tested as aviation fuel. Lufthansa is currently flying an Airbus A321 from Hamburg to Frankfurt four times a day with 50% NExBTL in one of its two engines. So far the test has encountered no technical problems.

 

And Neste is not the only one successfully supplying biofuels for airplanes: companies in the Netherlands and Spain have also become active in this new market. Dutch producer SkyNRG has produced a bio-kerosene using  only cooking oil from restaurants. So far it is flying without a hitch.

 

Our Swedish correspondent Reiner Gatermann spoke to executives and researchers at Neste about the company's plans in aviation and other biofuels. You can read his story by clicking here.  

 

European Energy Review is Europe's foremost independent energy journal on the internet. It features original reports, interviews, analyses, viewpoints and debates from across Europe. Registration to our newsletter, which is free and without obligations, gives you full and free access to our website. For more information about EER, click here.