It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 Foundation moved 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 consultants for the project.
The current airline to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
lawrencebell5 edited this page 2 weeks ago