The British Airways and Solena project that will use landfill waste as jet fuel now has a space at the Thames Enterprise Park that will work as the chosen facility, according to GreenAir Online.

British Airways has a lofty goal of fueling the future by proving they can provide sustainable biofuels for the airline industry.

It’s an 11-year project and the build for the GreenSky project is set to start in 2015 — with construction expected to be complete by 2017. The intentions are good: British Airways is striving to reduce their impact on climate change, reduce their carbon emissions and the sustainable jet fuel is predicted to have enough power for flights from London City Airport ‘twice over’.

“British Airways is providing construction capital and becoming a minority shareholder in the $500 million GreenSky project,” reports GreenAir Online, “The airline has committed to purchasing jet fuel produced by the plant, around 16 million gallons a year, for the next 11 years at market competitive prices, currently worth around $550 million.”

Wait, how are they using trash to fuel these jets?

This is where Solena Fuels and their clever patented high-temperature plasma gasification technology comes in. Solena has made a name for themselves by producing sustainable synthetic fuels produced by low-cost, carbon-bearing materials such as waste.

Rather than allow 575,000 tonnes of annual post-recycled waste end up in the landfill, the GreenSky project will use this ‘garbage’ to become 120,000 tonnes of clean-burning liquid fuels — with 50,000 tonnes of jet fuel with Solena’s technology.

The biofuel project is just taking off but if it flies, a sustainable future in the airway industry can soar.

Trash for energy is not a new concept

Sweden has been known for their super green way of living for a while — making great use of their trash and turning it into energy in their incineration power plants that provide electricity and heat for a huge number of homes.

In fact, they made headlines back in September when they actually started to run out of garbage and needed to start importing waste from other countries (mostly Norway.)

Check out this sweet video that talks more about the waste-to-jet fuel project

Here’s Willie Walsh, the CEO of IAG, the parent company of British Airways, talking about this awesome project:

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Image credit: Beast1