It's bad enough for some to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, 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 relocated to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the job.
The current airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists 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 just to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Holley Barone edited this page 2025-01-11 23:22:53 +03:00