Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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 drought 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 the use of biofuels to power jet . It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic specialists for the project.

The most current airline to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.