It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet . It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the project.
The most recent airline company to begin experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.
One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Colette Moultrie edited this page 2025-01-12 15:43:27 +08:00