1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

Anya Bear edited this page 1 week ago

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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very 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 usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the job.

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

One truly motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.