Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic consultants for the task.

The most current airline to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused 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 curcas and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.