Mission Biofuels Sdn. Bhd

Overview

  • Founded Date July 22, 1929
  • Sectors Graduates
  • Posted Jobs 0
  • Viewed 8

Company Description

Airlines Focus On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest 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 aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research and advancement 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 job.

The current airline to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging development has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green qualifications.