It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the job.
The latest airline to begin experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using 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 actually motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Kristi Mata edited this page 5 days ago