It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the project.
The most current airline to start explore 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 mix, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One truly encouraging development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
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.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
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