It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including 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 roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 relocated to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the project.
The most recent airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One really encouraging development has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Perry Phipps edited this page 5 months ago