It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel 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 various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.
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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very 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 relocated to perform research and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the project.
The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.
One actually motivating development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use 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, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
williemaeapz67 edited this page 2025-01-18 09:11:45 +08:00