It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the could start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered 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 family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, 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 transferred to carry out 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 tactical experts for the task.
The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Cyrus Hardwick edited this page 4 days ago