It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 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 dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the job.
The current airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving just to please someone else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Margart Robison edited this page 2025-01-19 07:32:28 -06:00