Interview: Boeing ‘begeistert’ von Biokraftstoffen[en] 

Billy Glover, managing director for Environmental Strategy at Boeing, is positive about the prospect of using biofuels in aircrafts. "This is one of the new developments that we’re really excited about," he told EurActiv.

With the global-warming impact of aviation becoming an increasing concern for politicians, Glover says that biofuels can help provide a solution. "If you can run the airplane on a 50% blend, you’ll reduce your carbon footprint by maybe 20-25% on that day," he says.

On 24 April, the US plane-maker announced that it had started work with UK airline Virgin Atlantic and engine-maker General Electric to run a demonstration flight in 2008.

According to Glover, part of the difficulty lies in selecting a type of fuel that can resist the extremely low temperatures encountered at high altitude: "We are in the testing phase right now, sorting through dozens of samples of different types of fuels to select the one that we’ll use for the biofuel demonstration."

The advantage is that there is little extra development needed to roll out the technology once it is available. "The blend can be used as soon as it's available, in all the airplanes that are already flying, without modification. No major changes of distribution networks, storage networks will be necessary."

However, Glover says that it will take time before the fuel industry increases its processing capacity. "What we can foresee is that within ten years, there will be certain airports with fuel tanks where this blend will be available. When you fly to that airport, that's the fuel you get. When you fly to another airport, you might get a more conventional fuel."

Turning to the EU's hot topic of the day - the inclusion of aviation in the emissions trading scheme for carbon dioxide - Glover is less enthusiastic.

"The bio-fuels research we started wasn’t particularly triggered by a discussion about ETS. You have to continuously make improvements to be competitive. The regulatory framework should recognise that we are already working as fast as we can to make improvements."

"Our aim – regardless of the details – is to provide efficient solutions," Glover says, only suggesting that the EU's upcoming Directive may convince airlines in the future to "'change out' their fleet over an investment period to significantly reduce their carbon emissions".

But he does not expect a surge in demand for more efficient airplanes due to the new law and rules out any increase production capacity for now. "We're very cautious, and carefully consider changes in capacity, because it’s a significant investment and it's a long supply chain. And we're just very cautious about ramping production up and down. It has a massive impact if you don't get it right."

Click here to read the full interview.