It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about 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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research study 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 tactical experts for the project.
The current airline 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging development has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to .
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
epifanianepean edited this page 2025-01-18 07:21:31 +08:00