It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to standard kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel 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 including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 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 experts for the job.
The most recent airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus avoiding a . Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to please another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Pedro Mcdougall edited this page 7 days ago