1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Karla Overton edited this page 2025-01-10 18:39:47 +00:00


It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha 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 curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research moved to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the project.

The current airline company to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.