Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard 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 Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha 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 curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell 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 relocated to perform 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 strategic specialists for the task.

The most current airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing 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 move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a undoubtedly if some people ended up starving simply to please somebody else’s green qualifications.