It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous 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 minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.
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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best 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 carry out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the job.
The current airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars 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 consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
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