It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of approximately 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 very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, 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 using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the task.
The current airline to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually 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 damaging emissions by 10%.
One really encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars triggered 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 intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
benjaminkreitm edited this page 2025-01-17 00:35:28 +00:00