Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin 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 increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly 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 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 curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 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 development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the job.
The current airline to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green credentials.