1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

jatropha curcas 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 jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

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

The most recent airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.