It's bad enough for some prop 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 air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the task.
The current airline company to start experimenting with 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
ambrosebucklin edited this page 2025-01-12 00:20:19 +00:00