Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use 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 thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research 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 tactical consultants for the task.

The most recent airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive 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 mixed blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else’s green credentials.