With all the talk about carbon footprints and offsets, flying has gotten a pretty bad rap as of late in terms of environmental impact (and it is probably mostly deserved, but that’s a whole different discussion). Sir Richard Branson, the CEO of Virgin Atlantic, among other things, has previously announced that he is going to focus all the profits that he brings in from the carrier for a 10 year period on environmental actions. One such action is an effort to fly planes not on Jet A Fuel, but on Butanol, a product of biomass. Virgin Atlantic hopes to run their test before Air New Zealand gets to, and both are expected to happen in late 2008.
I’m all in favor of a cleaner burning flight, but I sure hope they test those things out. A lot. I’m still not entirely convinced that planes should actually be flying (and I spend a lot of time in them), and seeing something that major change is a little scary.
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