Launch of the European Biofuel Flightpath initiative
The European Commission, Airbus, leading European airlines and European biofuel producers have launched this week an industry-wide initiative to accelerate the commercialisation of aviation biofuels in Europe through the ‘Biofuel Flightpath’.
This initiative, which follows the methods and governance of the SET-Plan, is scheduled to integrate 2 million tonnes of sustainable biofuels in the EU civil aviation sector by the 2020.
The biofuels for Biofuel Flightpath will be produced in Europe from European sourced feedstock material. Members of the accord are committed to support and promote the production, storage and distribution of sustainably produced drop-in biofuels for use in aviation. Biofuel Flightpath also aims to establish appropriate financial mechanisms to support the construction of industrial ‘first of a kind’ advanced biofuel production plants.
“This is a unique opportunity to create the first industrial venture ever introducing sustainable biofuels for commercially competitive operations. The Commission therefore fully supports all efforts in this direction and will actively contribute to their success. They are fully in line with our European Strategic Energy Technology Plan”, said Günter Oettinger, European Commissioner for Energy.
To achieve its ambitious goal, representatives from EU Member
States' energy, research and transportation departments, industry
representatives from the aviation and biofuels sector and
non-governmental organisations need to work together on the main
actions of the Biofuel Flightpath, namely:
- Facilitating the development of standards for drop-in biofuels and their certification for use in commercial aircrafts;
- Working together with the full supply chain to further develop worldwide-accepted, sustainability certification frameworks
- Agreeing on biofuel take-off arrangements over a defined period of time and at a reasonable cost;
- Promoting appropriate public and private actions to ensure the market uptake of paraffinic biofuels by the aviation sector;
- Establishing financing structures to facilitate the realization of second generation biofuel projects;
- Accelerating targeted research and innovation for advanced biofuel technologies, and especially algae.
- Taking concrete actions to inform the European citizen of the
benefits of replacing kerosene by certified sustainable biofuels.
For further information and to access the supporting technical
document:
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/technology/initiatives/
