It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to standard kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the 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 transferred to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the project.
The current airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Jeramy Bergin edited this page 6 months ago