It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited 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 consisting 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 approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the .
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the job.
The latest airline company to begin experimenting with 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 mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much 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 blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Angelita Rawlings edited this page 2025-01-11 22:24:39 +08:00