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Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to standard kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered 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 drought and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

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

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

One really encouraging advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else’s green credentials.