It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous types 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 limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the task.
The most recent airline to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Collin Wymark edited this page 1 week ago