It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
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 best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the task.
The newest airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Brittny Rowe edited this page 2025-01-18 13:01:02 +08:00