It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the finest 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the task.
The most recent airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging development has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks 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 intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Ambrose Braddon edited this page 2025-01-12 06:51:25 +00:00