It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa 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 bad for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of 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 consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and advancement into the usage 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 most recent airline to start try out brand-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 mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One really motivating development has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge 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, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
cathleenvetter edited this page 2025-01-18 20:01:59 +08:00