It's bad enough for some prop planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the 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 use 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 thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.
jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to carry out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the project.
The current airline company to start exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, 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 price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
pabloewj110737 edited this page 2025-01-11 03:20:25 +01:00