France’s Airbus and China forge partnership to push for alternative fuels

Airbus and one of the world’s leading academic institutions, Tsinghua University, have formed a partnership aimed at producing and promoting the use of aviation biofuel in China which is the world’s fastest growing aviation market. They will undertake a complete sustainability analysis of Chinese feedstocks, and evaluate how to best support the development of a value chain in order to speed up the commercialization of aviation biofuels.
Phase one involves assessing suitable feedstocks including used cooking oil, which would otherwise be waste, and algae; both of which comply with the ecological, economic and social sustainability criteria. The sustainability analysis is managed by Airbus in close collaboration with Tsinghua and leading European institutions.
Phase two will narrow down the most promising alternative fuel solutions. The first results are due for analysis in the second half of 2012 and the end goal is to select a number of alternatives by the beginning of 2013 at which point the full sustainability analysis should be complete. From 2013 onwards, the partners will look at scaling-up the alternative fuel production process to achieve sustainable quantities of aviation fuel for commercial use.
The partnership agreement is one of the initiatives to develop a complete sustainable aviation biofuel production capability in China, using only sustainable resources and is part of the Airbus goal to have in place a value chain in every continent by 2012. So far Airbus has value chains in Latin America, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and with the Chinese value chain, Asia. (August 28, 2012)