It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly 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 which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical experts for the task.
The most recent airline to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually 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 been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Darwin Laura edited this page 2025-01-12 00:19:43 +00:00