I wrote last week about the recent certification of gas to liquid fuel for use in commercial aircraft. Well, today we saw the first commerical flight using such fuel. In fact, Qatar Airways flight QR076 from London Gatwick to Doha was flown with a 50/50 mix of alternative fuel and normal jet fuel in each of its four engines. As I wrote previously, this new type of fuel is a little better for reducing emissions than traditional fuel, but it does provide an important stepping-stone between traditional fossil fuel and truly sustainable biofuels.

The GTL kerosene will be produced in commercial quantities by the Pearl GTL project, currently under construction by Qatar Petroleum and Shell. The project is expected to produce around one million tonnes per annum of GTL kerosene from 2012, enough to power a typical commercial airliner for half a billion kilometres (equivalent to carrying 250 passengers around the world 4,000 times) when used in a 50 per cent blend to make GTL Jet Fuel.