It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the family 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 insects, 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 transferred to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the task.
The most recent airline company to begin try out brand-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 claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long ago, 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, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Buck Allsop edited this page 2025-01-12 06:05:24 +01:00