It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal 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 thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical 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 airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the job.
The current airline to begin exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.
One truly motivating development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving just to please somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
pattymoffett4 edited this page 2025-01-18 03:27:11 +08:00