Subjunction06 Community

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 commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.


With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various kinds 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 quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.


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


In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the 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 aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the project.


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


One actually motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.


Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing indeed if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.