Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 restricted biofuel usage 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 thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of around 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 very best prospects for production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

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

The current airline to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy someone else’s green qualifications.