It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various 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 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 insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the project.
The most recent airline to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage 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 motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Rolando Tober edited this page 2025-01-18 02:31:57 +00:00