It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could 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 costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine 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 curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like 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 drought and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the job.
The most recent airline company to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which on with food customers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use 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 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 please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Randy Keck edited this page 5 months ago