It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates 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 aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the task.
The current airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use 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, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Sondra Yamamoto edited this page 4 months ago