It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha is a genus of approximately 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 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 transferred to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the project.
The most recent airline company to start 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 mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One really motivating development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks 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 combined true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
jonasbastow719 edited this page 2025-01-18 11:55:18 +08:00