It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad 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 jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic consultants for the job.
The most current airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles 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 blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Geraldo Bohannon edited this page 2025-01-11 20:35:41 +00:00