Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.


With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to conventional and these up until now appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.


Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.


Jatropha is a genus of around 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 finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.


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


The most recent airline to begin experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.


One truly encouraging advancement has been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.


Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.