Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation 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 used different blends of and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha is a genus of roughly 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 pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research 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 experts for the job.

The most recent airline to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars 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 combined blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green qualifications.