It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas is a genus of approximately 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 best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the project.
The current airline company to brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Dora Hamilton edited this page 4 months ago