It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the job.
The current airline to begin explore 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 mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging development has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please another person's green credentials.
1
Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
bernardosweet9 edited this page 1 month ago