Sustainable Aviation - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages The fuel used for the aircrafts like kerosene and others are often complained of emitting harmful gases like Nitrogen Dioxide into the atmosphere thus leading to an increase of air pollution in and around the regions surrounding the airports. It was however found that reduction of the combustion capacity of the engines led to the increased emission of Greenhouse gases like Carbon Dioxide into the air. Scientists and environmentalists around the world are endeavouring to find means for deriving a sustainable fuel source for the aircraft engines which in turn would reduce the atmospheric pollution (Azapagic and Perdan, 2011, Ch. 15). However it is often held that the endeavour to produce a sustainable fuel for the aeroplanes is not feasible in the technical and ethical sense. It is observed that most of the efforts conducted to produce a sustainable fuel often does not confirm the carbon footprint test and also happens to render increased stress on the engines thus hampering its productivity (Daggett et al., 2007, p.1). Hence the above efforts to produce a sustainable aircraft fuel suffer from lack of technical and ethical feasibility.
Sustainable Fuel for Aircraft Engines
The term sustainability refers to protecting or sustaining the environment in order to meet the needs of the present population without compromising on the needs of the future generation. Sustainability thus concerns a holistic network of environmental, social and economic policies aimed at sustaining the scarce resources. These policies must be measureable and again must also be lend for evaluation to help it met the demand of different periods (Wohlmeyer and Quendler, 2002, p.198).
198). Aviation fuel has long depended on products like kerosene to help ignite the motor engines. However the practice is found to have contributed largely to the polluting of the atmosphere through the emission of large volumes of nitrogen dioxide. Thus to reduce the content of greenhouses gases and other harmful gases into the atmosphere the need for a sustainable fuel resource is greatly emphasized. Research unto generating a feasible sustainable fuel for the aeroplanes is under process with introduction of fuels generated from biomass or fuelling of liquid hydrogen into the air engines. The research of generating a sustainable fuel source for aircraft engines is gaining patronage from many nations owing to its help in protection of fossil resources and the atmosphere from being polluted (Evans, 2007, p.162). Sustainable fuel generation for aircraft engines appears to be the new challenge for it signifies taking resort to alternative sources of fuel other than that related to diesel, petrol and kerosene. Production of alternative sources of fuel can be conducted through the use of biomasses derived from large amounts of bio waste products and algae masses. Again use of liquid hydrogen and other cryogenic materials like use of ethane and methane gases in the liquid state is also being recommended for the fuel generation of aircraft engines. Thus the use of considerable amount of biomass and cryogenic liquids for the production of aircraft engine fuel is considered a sustainable means for generation of aircraft fuel. Use of such energy resources are observed to help in reducing the combustion temperature of the engines which in turn led to the production of low or no amounts of carbon dioxide. Further research is enabled to derive natural gases from both natural bio mass and other synthetic sources with also enhancing the dependence on gases like Ethane derived from natural gases for production of sustainable fuel for aircraft engines (Daggett et al., 2007, p.1). Technical and Ethical Feasibility of Efforts in Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel The current ...Download file to see next pagesRead More