It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil 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 different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out 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 act as strategic experts for the project.
The most recent airline to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Andreas Northrup edited this page 3 months ago