Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
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 business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage 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 curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the job.
The current airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed 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 motivating development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates 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 curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.