Boeing conducts world’s first green diesel powered flight

Boeing has completed the world's first flight using 'green diesel', a sustainable biofuel that is widely available and used in ground transportation.

The airline powered its ecoDemonstrator 787 flight test airplane in December with a blend of 15% green diesel and 85% petroleum jet fuel in the left engine.

'Green diesel offers a tremendous opportunity to make sustainable aviation biofuel more available and more affordable for our customers,' says Julie Felgar, managing director of Environmental Strategy and Integration, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. 'We will provide data from several ecoDemonstrator flights to support efforts to approve this fuel for commercial aviation and help meet our industry's environmental goals.'

With production capacity of 800 million gallons in the US, Europe and Asia, green diesel could rapidly supply as much as 1% of global jet fuel demand. With a wholesale cost of approximately $3 per gallon (€2.45), inclusive of US government incentives, green diesel approaches price parity with petroleum jet fuel.

On a lifecycle basis, sustainably produced green diesel reduces carbon emissions by 50 - 90%compared to fossil fuel, according to Finland-based Neste Oil, which supplied green diesel for the ecoDemonstrator 787.