It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including 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 jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel . It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the job.
The latest airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please someone else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Glinda Tall edited this page 7 months ago