Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the job.

The current airline to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.