Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered 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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the project.

The most recent airline to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging development has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize prices 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 combined blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please somebody else’s green credentials.