Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred 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 serve as tactical consultants for the project.

The current airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating advancement has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.