Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the project.

The current airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please another person’s green credentials.