Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research moved to perform research and advancement 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 project.

The current airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights using 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 truly encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to please another person’s green credentials.