Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by travel pioneer, 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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 very 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the task.

The most recent airline company to begin experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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