Municipal waste, used food oil and natural oils are the leading contenders in a five year roadmap to develop biofuel by 2020 by The Initiatives for Next Generation Aviation Fuels (INAF).

From 2020, Japanese production of biofuels is expected following the formulation of a business plan over the next 12 months, then the design and construction of a production plant until 2018 and then in 2019 the trial operation of the biofuel facility.

The roadmap is described in an INAF report made public last week. Biofuel’s are expected to reduce aviation’s environmental footprint. INAF is a consortium of 46 organisations including Boeing, All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, Nippon Cargo Airlines, Japan’s government and the University of Tokyo.

The INAF work in the years to come will also seek to reduce the costs of biofuels. Even with the high cost of oil in recent years, biofuels are still more expensive than conventional jet fuel, and can be twice the price. How biofuel can be mixed with jet fuel is another area of study for INAF.