Qantas to spice up transpacific flights with mustard power
Australian flag carrier Qantas hopes to cut the mustard with transpacific flights powered by a new biofuel.
One of Qantas’ new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner jets taking flight for Los Angeles will be the first powered with a 30% mix of cleaner aviation fuel made from mustard seeds.
It will cut emissions by 20%, Qantas claims.
Qantas has inked a partnership deal with Canadian firm Agrisoma Biosciences for a homegrown supply of biofuel after successful trials growing the ‘Ethiopian mustard’ crop in Quennsland and South Australia.
It hopes to to grow up to 400,000 hectares of the seed, said Qantas International chief executive Alison Webster.
That amount could produce about 200 million litres of bio-jetfuel a year.
"This will support the development of a renewable jetfuel supply and bio-refinery in Australia to power our fleet and further reduce carbon emissions across our operations," Webster said.
Agrisoma chief executive Steve Fabijanski said: "This is really quite a forward-thinking exercise to have an airline going all the way back to the farmers and saying how this supply chain is going to work."
Qantas also recently signed a separate partnership with US bio-energy company SG Preston to supply biofuel for Australia bound services out of Los Angeles from 2020.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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