Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
It’s bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha 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 curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the task.
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 damaging emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green qualifications.
