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Konangrit
Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 61
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 Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:20 am Post subject: Virgin plans world first biofuel flight in Feb |
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| Quote: | LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - British airline Virgin Atlantic said on Monday it would run the world's first commercial jet flight powered by biofuel between London Heathrow and Amsterdam next month.
The Boeing 747 will fly without passengers ten
months earlier than initially planned as part of efforts by Virgin, Boeing Co and GE Aviation to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation.
"This fuel has never been in the air before on a commercial plane, although it's been tested in engines on the ground in altitude conditions," said a Virgin spokesman.
"It's a sustainable fuel, so you don't have to knock down forests to get it," he added.
Virgin declined to give further details of the source of the fuel, but Boeing has previously been looking at algae as a biofuel source.
Boeing has calculated that powering the world's aircraft fleet in 2004 with pure biofuel from soybeans would have required enough soybean fields to cover Europe.
But using algae is over 150 times more efficient and the process could power the world aircraft fleet using 35 square kilometres of algae ponds -- about the size of Belgium.
The Virgin flight is likely to use a blend of biofuel with traditional jet fuel, gaining knowledge of the CO2 savings and commercial viability.
"The flight will give our engineers and those at Boeing and GE vital learnings for the passenger flights of the future," said Virgin's Richard Branson. (Reporting by Pete Harrison; Editing by David Cowell and David Holmes) |
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Not only do we have to worry about the polar icecaps shrinking, now we have to contend with Belgium shrinking too! Quite funny actually, I've noticed this Reuters article in several newspapers, none of which corrected the error. Belgium's actual area is 30,528 km.
Anyway, good to see they're making progress in this area of research. Virgin are investing a lot of money into this technology. |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 242
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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Good find.
I'll watch this one with interest.
I think if air-transport companies were at all serious about reducing carbon emissions they ought to just get rid of fuel-powered aviation altogether and bring back Zeppelins.
At the very least Zeppelins ought to be an available option for the air-travelling public alongside trains and planes. It's rather premature to automatically assume they might be unpopular. Almost no-one remembers the Hindenburg disaster these days.
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Alan Lansdowne
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 242
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:05 am Post subject: |
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Well, apparently the world's first biofuel-powered commercial flight from London Heathrow to Amsterdam Schiphol on February 24th, 2008 was a success.
The Boeing 747 was powered by a mixture of 80% conventional jet fuel and 20% biofuel, consisting of babassu nut oil (what?) and coconut oil.
Now Continental is reported to be interested in trying something similar:
First Virgin, now Continental, testing biofuels
And I hear that Virgin is looking to try out the algae-based fuel next.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
Last edited by attitudetravel on Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:12 am; edited 2 times in total |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 242
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:09 am Post subject: |
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Not everyone is happy about Virgin's successful flight from London Heathrow to Amsterdam Schiphol.
Here's BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh:
Virgin's biofuel is a PR stunt says BA boss
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Alan Lansdowne
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 242
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:15 am Post subject: |
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Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr isn't impressed by Virgin either:
Biofuel not the answer
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Alan Lansdowne
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