1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

Sylvia Struthers edited this page 1 year ago

It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the project.

The most recent airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.