TalkClimateChange

 

Billionaire, entrepreneur, serial adventurer and airline owner Richard Branson is the man behind an innovation which may take the sting out of one of climate change’s biggest sins.

Next month a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 will make the world’s first biofuel powered flight between London and Amsterdam. Testing a blend of 80% conventional aviation fuel and 20% biofuel the test promises to pave the way to a future low carbon airline industry. The flight follows Branson’s announcement last year of a $3 billion investment program to develop renewable energy for transport.

With no feasible alternative to the jet engine Branson’s initiative will be warmly welcomed by those who have found it difficult to avoid long haul travel.

But TalkClimateChange hates biofuels, right?

Right.

However, the Virgin 747 will use a specially developed biofuel which according to a Virgin spokesman is fully sustainable and, critically, will not compete with food or freshwater resources.

Virgin and its partners are currently keeping quiet about the exact nature and source of this fuel, although it has been suggested that it may have been developed from marine algae. Should such a fuel prove to be viable then we may be looking at a major step forwards in the reduction of Co2 emissions. Biofuels that can be produced on a scale sufficient to satisfy the huge demands of the airline industry might feasibly be used in the auto industry at the same time, alleviating many of the problems caused by today’s biofuels.

This news comes at the same time as the EU have announced a ban on certain types of biofuel following criticism of the fuel’s negative environmental and social impacts.

Virgin have previously initiated other common sense emissions reduction initiatives. Last year Virgin calculated that an aircraft creates at least 10 tons of unnecessary Co2 emissions annually during taxiing and whilst waiting for take-off. Since then Virgin planes at Heathrow airport have been towed from their parking spaces to the runway.