Gasrec begins LBM trial on East Midlands Airport bus

East Midlands Airport (EMA) and Gasrec, the first commercial manufacturer of Liquid Biomethane (LBM) in the UK, are entering into a six-month test trial to fuel a Cobus 3000 airport bus. The purpose of the EMA trial is to gather information on the benefits of LBM, namely air quality improvement, greenhouse gas emission reduction, cost savings and vehicle performance.

All gathered information from the trial will be compared to the performance of other airport vehicles fuelled by diesel. It is expected that the LBM test will show major reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and improvement in air quality.

Meanwhile, Gasrec had previously supplied the fuel for Iveco Daily’s cage tipper vehicle, resulting to a 62 per cent cut on its carbon dioxide emissions. As outcome, Gasrec had gathered huge amount of interest about LBM from UK firms, including from London Mayor Boris Johnson.

The trial run will also highlight various projects that EMA has employed towards achieving its 2012 target of carbon neutrality. In 2002, EMA was the first airport in the UK to be certified with the international environmental standard ISO14001. The airport was also the UK’s first to commit to make its ground operations carbon neutral by 2012.

EMA extended its departure lounge with an energy efficient pier as well. The green pier acquires heat from 27 boreholes, which are five times more energy efficient than other heating sources. Meanwhile, the toilets installed at the low carbon pier make use of rain water for flushing, and the infrastructure’s lighting is natural or low energy consuming.