It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, 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 minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the project.
The most recent airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused 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 mixed true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Sara Venable edited this page 2 days ago