Friday, August 8, 2014
Boeing wants to turn tobacco into jet fuel
Boeing is working with South African Airways to fuel the airline's planes with biofuel made from a new breed of tobacco plant.
Boeing is running biofuel projects on six continents and its latest, announced Wednesday, started in October after South African Airways approached the Seattle company to develop a sustainable biofuel supply chain. South Africa has promised to reduce its carbon emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025, so South African Airways wants to implement homegrown biofuel by 2017.
According to Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal, for a biofuel to make sense, the source should be locally grown (to minimize transportation costs and the carbon footprint involved in it), fit into existing supply chains, and not raise problems with land and water use–which often triggers a fuel-or-food debate. Tobacco already is grown in South Africa and using the crops for fuel lessens the impact of no-smoking campaigns on farmers.
SkyNRG, a sustainable fuel company, is producing the biofuel from the Solaris tobacco strain.
For more of the Wired story: wired.com
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