South Africa Celebrates First Biofuel Flight

The South African Airways recently celebrated Africa's first sustainable biofuel flight. A Boeing flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town used biojet fuel produced from Sunchem's nicotine-free tobacco plant Solaris.

The flight serves as proof of the possibility to produce biofuel to improve lives of smallholder farmers. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) hopes these impacts can be duplicated worldwide in regions with diverse feedstocks, and that there will be more similar flights.

RSB partnered with Sunchem SA and SkyNRG, which developed the Solaris tobacco, a variety with no nicotine, high seed set and limited leaf production. The crop is cultivated by farmers in the Limpopo province of South Africa. RSB continues to work with Boeing, WWF-SA and other partners to help safeguard natural resources, water and food for growing populations.

The project was launched in May 2014, with Solaris now scaled-up in South Africa as a locally produced feedstock for sustainable biojet fuel production.