It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.
With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous types of biofuel.
Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started 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 foods.
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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the finest 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 major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the project.
The newest airline to start try out 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 harmful emissions by 10%.
One really motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.
