mission-biofuels-india-private-ltd

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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

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 candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out 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 strategic consultants for the job.

The current airline company to start exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

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