It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could 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 options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, 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 use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized 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.
Jatropha 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 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 development into making 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 task.
The most recent airline to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Adelaida Cloutier edited this page 1 month ago