Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the task.

The latest airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else’s green qualifications.