Airlines Focus 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 cynics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different 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.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the .

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 bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research study 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 specialists for the project.

The current airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else’s green credentials.