Lufthansa announced today that it will use a biofuel blend made from 50 percent vegetable oil and 50 percent kerosene on daily flights between Hamburg and Frankfurt.

This will be the first commercial flight to use biofuel.

The Germany airline said that the flights will begin in April 2011 and will continue for six months as part of a government study on the impact of biofuels on aircraft maintenance.

The Airbus A321 will save about 1,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, Lufthansa said.

“We can see the opportunities this fuel offers and give serious attention to the debate on the requisite raw materials,” Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Mayrhuber said in a news release. “But we first want to acquire experience in daily practice in the use of biofuels.”

The German government is spending around 2.5 million euros towards the project.

“The object is to gather data on pollutants from biofuel in comparison with conventional kerosene over a longer period,” Professor Johann-Dietrich Wörner, chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center, said in a news release. “The measured pollution pattern related to diverse stresses in flight and the composition of the exhaust gases will allow us not only to draw conclusions about the compatibility of biofuel but also about the maintenance needs of aircraft engines. Since, above all, we expect a significant reduction in soot particles.”

Finland-based Neste Oil will provide the biofuel and the company claims that the biomass derived jet fuel produces 40-80 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions over the lifecycle of the fuel.

Currently, two percent of global emissions are due to aviation.

Earlier this year, industry giants British Airways and Airbus, announced that air travel could be powered from “vast seas of algae growing close to airports within four years,” while KLM and Continental have made demonstration flights using alternatives to jet fuel.

British Airways and Airbus are supporting a project at the UK’s Cranfield University to investigate ways of harvesting algae for jet fuel in commercial quantities.

Global Airlines struck a deal in October at the International Civil Aviation Organization that aviation emissions would be capped by 2020. The resolution, supported by 190 countries, will cut aviation emissions all the way up to 2050. According to the resolution, the aviation sector would become two percent more efficient until 2020, and emissions would be capped — there onwards.

This deal would cover over 90 percent of worldwide air traffic.

The EU had originally committed to reducing its aviation sector’s emissions by 10 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Clearly this isn’t enough. As a consultant on CNN pointed out, “the best airlines are improving their fuel efficiency by around 1.5 percent a year, but the aviation industry as a whole is growing by 4 to 5 percent a year.” But if we don’t do anything, global aviation emissions could reach 2.4 billion tonnes in 2050 — and that number has to be curtailed.