Mission Biotechnologies Sdn. Bhd

Overview

  • Founded Date August 10, 1906
  • Sectors Sales & Marketing
  • Posted Jobs 0
  • Viewed 2
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Company Description

Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

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

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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 moved to carry out research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the project.

The current airline company to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing 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 really motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much 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 mixed true blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to please another person’s green credentials.

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