It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start 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 practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, 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 utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the task.
The current airline to begin exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging by 10%.
One really motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
1
Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Benny Zelman edited this page 2025-01-11 14:09:32 +00:00