It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the 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 rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different 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 foods items.
Jatropha 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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell 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 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 strategic consultants for the project.
The latest airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
beatricehollar edited this page 2025-01-11 21:21:05 +00:00