Just How Well Did Biofuels Perform in the Air?

(MoneyWatch)  There have been plenty of biofuel flight tests over the last few months, but we haven't had any definite results . . . until now. And the results are pretty impressive.

Late last week, Air New Zealand announced the results of its test, which used a 50/50 blend of jatropha and regular jet fuel to power one engine on a 747 back in January. Yes, I know I've written a lot about those guys lately, but trust me, this is interesting.

Looking at the results, they were able to calculate what the impact would be on a 12 hour flight on a 747 using only the 50/50 blend for every engine instead of straight Jet-A fuel. Here's what they found:

• Fuel burn would drop by 1.2 percent, or 1.43 tons
• CO2 emissions would drop 60 to 75 percent, or around 4.5 tons

In case it's not clear, these are amazing results, especially since it's only a 50/50 blend. They were actually better than what was originally expected.

But don't think that we'll all be flying on jatropha-powered planes in the near future. There's a lot of work that has to be done and money that has to be invested before there's a truly sustainable biofuel harvested in enough quantity to have a real impact, but the precedent is certainly exciting.