Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
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It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated 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 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 family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support to bring out research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the task.

The latest airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out 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 damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging development has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much 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 combined blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to please somebody else’s green qualifications.