It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.
With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to different 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 began 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 regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.
jatropha curcas 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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.
Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the task.
The most recent airline to start 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 actually encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.
Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving just to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.
