It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the project.
The most recent airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Albertina Harbin edited this page 8 months ago