Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 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 best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 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 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 project.

The newest airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut by 10%.

One actually motivating development has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please another person’s green qualifications.