LITTLE ROCK — Dynamic Fuels begins testing its 20 percent biodiesel jet fuel blend in a limited number of commercial flights in the United States, months after a similar experiment was announced in Europe, the company said Monday in a news release.
The blended fuel will be used in a Boeing 737 Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and also in a BombardierQ400 Horizon Air flight from Seattle to Portland, Ore., the news release said.
The intra-continental U.S. flight follows the July release of the ASTM Aviation Fuel Standard, which says up to 50 percent bioderived synthetic blending components can be added to conventional jet fuel.
ASTM, a nonprofit in West Conshocken, Pa., in a July 1 news release said “the blended jet fuel used in the airplane is essentially identical to conventional jet fuel and does not differ in performance or operability.”
Robert M. Ames, a renewable energy general manager at Tyson Foods, in a phone interview Monday, said the new standard “really opens the door for commercial applications for jet fuel.”
Dynamic Fuels is a joint venture between meat marketing giant Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale and technology development company Syntroleum Corp. of nearby Tulsa that was created in 2007.
Earlier this summer, Dynamic Fuels said KLM Royal Dutch Airlines of Amstelveen, Netherlands, was set to experiment with a similar fuel in September.
Dynamic Fuels operates one plant in Geismar, La., that has the ability to produce 75 million gallons a year of synthetic fuel that’s been converted from animal fats, greases and vegetable oils.
Ames said that since October 2010 when the company first began production, its fuel has been blended with diesel found at the pump.
While the plant continues to make automotive fuel, “we’re making renewable jet fuel on a batch-to-batch basis,” he said.
The aviation industry is potentially a very big market, said Ames, noting that the first jet fuel sold out of its Louisiana plant went to the U.S. Air Force for aircraft at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.
While the military certified Dynamic Fuels’ 50-50 mix jet fuel for at least one type of aircraft, the company remains hopeful the certification would be expanded among the Air Force fleet by the end of 2012.
Business, Pages 21 on 11/08/2011