It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem 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 started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 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 prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the job.
The current airline company to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much 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 blended blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Harriett Gray edited this page 1 week ago