Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad 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 family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the project.

The current airline company to begin exploring with 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 mix, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green qualifications.