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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and development 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 experts for the project.

The most current airline company to start explore 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 mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really motivating development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much 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 blended blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green qualifications.