Virgin Atlantic Flies World's First Biofuel Flight
Sir Richard Branson is liking the color green: His Virgin Atlantic flew the world's commercial aircraft flight powered with biofuel on Sunday, demonstrating how it produces less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels.
"This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected," said Virgin's president, Branson, before his Boeing 747 flew from London's Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.
While the flight drew praise from many who saw it as a useful experiment, others called it a publicity stunt and doubted the quantifiable long-term benefits of biofuel.
"It's great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation," said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London stockbroker Dawnay Day Lochart. "But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming."
The flight was partially fueled with "a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil" in one of its four main fuel tanks which, frankly, sounds delicious.
From USA Today
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