Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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 pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the job.

The latest airline company to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging development has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.