It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha 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 finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the task.
The newest airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed 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 harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Therese Hennessy edited this page 2025-01-16 12:42:52 +08:00