Getting There with “Green” Jet Fuel
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
The crunch of fuel prices has driven airlines to charge extra fees for everything from baggage to blankets. Tired of rising fuel costs, Virgin Atlantic head honcho Richard Branson announced plans to start building cellulosic ethanol plants to make biofuel. The hope was to offset the 700 million gallons of fuel Virgin uses annually to power its fleet by replacing some or all of it with ethanol.
In theory, biofuel can be produced from any biological carbon source. Although many different plants or plant-derived materials are currently used in biofuel processing, the most common option tends to be photosynthetic plants that capture solar energy. While Branson aimed to accomplish this feat in 5-6 years, nearly three years after his announcement plans are still in the works.
Meanwhile, others have joined the fray, including Solazyme of South San Francisco, CA. This renewable oil production company claims to have created the “world’s first microbial-derived jet fuel” by genetically modifying algae to consume a wide range of feedstocks, including wood chips and sawdust. When the algae have, in a sense, overeaten, they produce oil as a storage mechanism. The result: non-toxic, renewable oil that can be “leveraged across a wide variety of industries and applications.”
