1 Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the job.

The most recent airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US 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 truly motivating advancement has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green qualifications.