British Airways signs up for joint biofuel venture

British Airways has signed up for a project to source aviation biofuel from waste, it has been announced.

The airline has entered into the joint venture with gasification firm Solena, and will use sustainable fuels created from residual waste at the GreenSky facility in East London.

It is believed the facility will convert around 500,000 tonnes of residual waste into 50,000 tonnes of aviation biofuel and 50,000 of bionaphtha and biodiesel every year.

Meanwhile, the plant will also have a renewable power generation capacity of 40MW.

It will use Solena's high temperature gasification technology to produce a synthesis gas. This will then be cleaned and transformed into liquid hydrocarbons using reactors patented by the company.

The ten year deal sees British Airways committed to purchasing jet fuel produced by the plant over the next decade. This equates to around $500 million at today's prices.

Furthermore, the partners have also signed an exclusive option for a site for the facility, and construction of the East London site is set to begin.

Keith Williams, the chief executive of British Airways, said that the project will assist in fulfilling the airline company's vision of bringing sustainable aviation fuel into the real world by 2015.

Bioeconomy consultant firm NNFCC's chief executive Dr Jeremy Tomkinson commented: "Biofuels are the only low carbon alternative to fossil fuels in the aviation sector and as a result GreenSky London is likely to be the first of many similar projects built in the years to come."

Engineering firm Fluor has began the pre-front and end engineer and design of the project. It is hoped the plant will be operational by 2015.

This is also good news for construction workers, with around 1,000 jobs set to be created during its building. Meanwhile, more than 150 permanent staff will be needed to operate the facility.