It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular 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 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 aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the job.
The latest airline company to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights using a blend 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 motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
denayokoyama0 edited this page 2025-01-18 11:35:37 +08:00