Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family 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 aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the job.

The most current airline company to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a rate 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 .

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please somebody else’s green credentials.