Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the 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 rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha 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 very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the project.

The current airline company to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted 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 development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green credentials.