It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, 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 quickly 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 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the task.
The newest airline to start exploring with 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 mix, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much 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 blended blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Howard Milton edited this page 6 months ago