Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted 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 consisting of 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 household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates 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 major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic consultants for the job.
The current airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving just to please someone else's green credentials.