It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.
jatropha curcas 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the project.
The newest airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed 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 motivating development has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Katrin Kolios edited this page 2025-01-12 20:22:24 +09:00