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1 Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at industrial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor 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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 moved to research and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the project.

The most recent airline to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices 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 combined true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.