It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.
Jatropha 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 cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 development 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 specialists for the project.
The most recent airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One really encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Isabell Poate edited this page 2025-01-12 09:28:01 +08:00