It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started 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 various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects 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 perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the project.
The most recent airline company 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 declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to please someone else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
sidneyytj99958 edited this page 2025-01-18 16:30:52 +08:00