1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

Alexander Echevarria edited this page 7 days ago

It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem 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 began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the task.

The current airline to start explore 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 . This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs 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 mixed blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.