Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

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

With the civil air under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various 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 approximately 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 best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, 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 carry out research and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the project.

The most recent airline company to begin exploring with 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving simply to please another person’s green qualifications.