Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 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 aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as for the task.

The most current airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars caused 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 consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else’s green qualifications.