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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to come down to various types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the 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 rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future . It is resistant to dry spell and insects, 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 transferred to perform research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the task.
The most recent airline to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.