It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by . Now the skeptics might start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives 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 started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.
Jatropha 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 jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical specialists for the task.
The current airline company to begin explore 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 mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Ahmad Layden edited this page 2025-01-17 23:05:18 +07:00