It's bad enough for some prop planes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.
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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and development into making use of to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical experts for the project.
The current airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One really encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs 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 blended true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Eddy Kerns edited this page 2025-01-18 09:41:22 +00:00