It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 transferred to carry out research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the job.
The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One really encouraging development has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Samantha Baragwanath edited this page 2025-01-12 16:29:24 +08:00