Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly 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 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 finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is 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 relocated to perform research and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the job.

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

One truly motivating development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else’s green qualifications.