It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business 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 options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 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 candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the task.
The most current airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out 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 damaging emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices 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 curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Aubrey Dunlea edited this page 1 day ago