Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel 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 who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out 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 serve as strategic specialists for the task.

The most current airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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