Virgin Australia has partnered with the Renewable Oil Corporation (ROC), Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation (DYMTF) and the Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Centre (FFI CRC) to develop a sustainable aviation biofuel, aimed at reducing environmental impact and helping Australian farms.
The partnership will experiment with the use of fast pyrolysis technology developed by Dynamotive to farm and process a sustainable mallees eucalypt tree as a source of biofuel.
“We believe this new project has great potential given the results with the technology and the availability of this unique Australian feedstock,” Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti said.
“Over the past few years Virgin Australia has been working with stakeholders across the industry to research and develop bio-derived renewable fuels that can be used to progressively replace conventional aviation fuels,” he added.
The consortium is currently finalising plans for a demonstration unit to be operational by 2012, that will make biofuels for testing, certification and public trials.
