It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of around 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 insects, 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 and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the task.
The newest airline to start experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Dann Lindsley edited this page 2025-01-12 04:40:15 +08:00