It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
Jatropha is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.
In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the project.
The most recent airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people wound up starving just to please another person's green qualifications.
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Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum
tamaraprentice edited this page 2025-01-12 04:49:02 +08:00