Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum > 자유게시판

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It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane 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 boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly 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 poor for growing mainstream foods.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the job.

The most recent airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices 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 certainly if some people ended up starving just to please someone else's green credentials.