It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine 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 curcas is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the project.
The current airline to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging development has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Elinor Newbery edited this page 6 days ago