Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use 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 poor 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 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 aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the project.

The most current airline company to start exploring with 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else’s green qualifications.