When a South African Airways (SAA) Boeing 737 took off from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg two years ago, headed for Cape Town, it was powered by an unusual fuel: tobacco. SA hasn’t yet repeated the jet biofuel feat, but in an effort to cut its climate-changing emissions and promote greener power the country’s researchers are looking for innovative ways to manufacture green aviation fuel at larger scale. A new "waste to wing" project aims to one day produce a significant share of the country’s aviation fuel from waste plants, including invasive species. "SA produces a large amount of agricultural waste, as well as waste from plantation forestry and waste biomass from alien vegetation clearing programmes," said Tjasa Bole-Rentel, an energy economics and policy specialist for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), one of the groups involved in the biofuel push. So far the effort is a small "proof of concept" project, likely to produce just enough jet biofuel for one mor...
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