It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell 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 moved to carry out research 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 specialists for the task.
The current airline to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful by 10%.
One really encouraging development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines 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 individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Anna Dashwood edited this page 6 days ago