Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics 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 rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted 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 foods.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 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 prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the task.

The current airline to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has been the move far from which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to please someone else’s green qualifications.