It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to and these so far appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted 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 which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of approximately 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 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 aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the project.
The most recent airline to begin experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
dominicvigano4 edited this page 4 months ago