mission-newenergy-limited

It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation 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 utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about 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 family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, 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 perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the project.

The most current airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please someone else's green qualifications.