It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
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 pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the job.
The most current airline to start experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a mix 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 motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Hershel Somerset edited this page 3 months ago