1 Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

Twyla Hammond edited this page 2025-01-14 11:44:30 +08:00

It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of roughly 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 best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to carry out research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the job.

The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use 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, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.