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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, 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 various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell 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 transferred to carry out research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the task.
The current airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else’s green qualifications.