Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.


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


Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of 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 household Euphorbiaceae.


In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.


Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.


The current airline to start exploring with 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.


One actually motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much 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 blended true blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.