Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum > 자유게시판

It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel 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 used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very 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 aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to carry out research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the project.

The newest airline company to start experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating development has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.