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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might begin 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 rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the project.

The newest airline company to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 actually motivating advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.