MIT’s Technology Review announces a new bio-jet fuel, to be tested next week in Australia.

On December 3, a Boeing 747 belonging to Air New Zealand is scheduled to take off from Auckland, New Zealand, powered in part by a new type of jet fuel made from a weed. A mixture of equal parts biofuel and conventional fuel will run one of the plane’s engines. The biofuel, which could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, was developed by UOP, a major supplier of technology for petroleum refining.

It’s not the first time that an airliner has been powered by biofuel. What’s new is the source of the biofuel: jatropha, a plant that, unlike current sources of biofuels, is not a food crop and can be grown in marginal agricultural land.

I confess, I don’t understand how such a bio-fuel would not interfere with food prices as is claimed. While the plant, jatropha, is said to grow well on marginal land which will not support corn or soy, that does not mean that growers will confine it to such land. It all depends on the price per work/investment input, no? If pulling out corn and putting in jatropha gets the grower a higher profit, why wouldn’t he do that, thereby decreasing the amount of land for corn, thereby eventually raising prices on that food product? If jatropha brought in slightly less than corn, however, and could be grown on land not suitable for corn, and could be grown without fabulous admixtures of petroleum fertilizers with all the CO2, cost and run off problems, what a bonanza!

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