It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to standard kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the job.
The most recent airline to start exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out 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 actually encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to please another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
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