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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
Lanny Matthes edited this page 2025-01-18 00:07:35 +01:00


It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted 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 which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas 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 curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, 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 study and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the task.

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

One actually motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.