Canada-headed agri-tech company Agrisoma Biosciences Inc. has partnered with United Airlines, Inc., and World Energy LLC on Agrisoma's second international commercial flight powered by biojet fuel made from Carinata seed oil. The nonstop San Francisco-to-Zurich flight on a Boeing 787 departed on September 14 from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and arrived September 15 at Zurich Airport (ZRH) making it the longest biojet fuelled transatlantic flight to date.
The biojet fuel made from Carinata seed oil and refined by World Energy’s AltAir Fuels Paramount facility replaces 30 percent of the petroleum jet fuel needed for the flight. In January this year, Agrisoma, Qantas Airways, and World Energy partnered on the world’s first US to Australia transpacific flight, from Los Angeles (LAX) to Melbourne (MEL), that used biojet fuel produced from Carinata.
Carinata (Brassica carinata) is a non-food, industrial mustard seed developed by Agrisoma that has growers in place throughout the Americas and Australia, where Carinata is grown as a second crop to complement existing crop production, delivering additional on-farm income and soil health benefits. Carinata biojet fuel is made by harvesting tonnes of Carinata crop, crushing the grain to recover the oil and refining that oil into jet fuel.
Agrisoma has commercial agreements across the global aviation industry to supply Carinata for a low-carbon fuel that is chemically identical to conventional, petroleum-derived jet fuel. Production of biofuel from Carinata seeds yields both biofuel and, as a byproduct, high-protein animal feed. Stems and leaves from the crop are returned to the field to enrich the soil for subsequent crops.
Carinata is the first oilseed to be certified sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), the independent global standard and certification program for sustainable biofuels.
