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 might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.


With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.


Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized 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 household Euphorbiaceae.


In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.


Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform 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 strategic experts for the task.


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


One actually encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars caused 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 mixed blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.