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 commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to traditional kerosene and these so far 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to and bugs, 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 moved to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the project.
The most current airline to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered 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 intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
cheryljohn1791 edited this page 2025-01-12 06:21:11 -05:00