Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal 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 considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

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 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 aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and advancement into the 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 latest airline company to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to .

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving just to please somebody else’s green credentials.