It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated 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 utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor 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 jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research 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 tactical consultants for the task.
The current airline company to begin try out 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 mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus preventing a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
julianne46983 edited this page 2025-01-11 12:53:12 +00:00