It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage 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 considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas 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 cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for 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 bring out research and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic consultants for the job.
The latest airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using 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 really encouraging advancement has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
emilypring491 edited this page 2025-01-18 00:13:06 +00:00