Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the job.

The most recent airline to begin exploring with 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage 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, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.