Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic consultants for the project.
The current airline to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.