mission-biofuels-sdn.-bhd

It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find practical options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage 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 curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated 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 serve as tactical consultants for the job.

The latest airline company to start 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 . This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks 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 usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.