It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very 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 usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family 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 bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would as tactical consultants for the project.
The current airline company to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using 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 really encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Douglas Corbo edited this page 3 months ago