This is very cool:

A US airline has completed the first test flight of a plane partly powered by biofuel derived from algae.

The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said.

One of its engines was powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel.

Wednesday’s test is the latest in a series of demonstration flights by the aviation industry, which hopes to be using biofuels within five years.

BBC News, 8 January 2009

Virgin Air, Air New Zealand, and now Continental have all tested commercial equipment with biodiesel blends. In addition, Green Flight Int’l plans a 40 744 KM (25 317 miles) around-the-world biodiesel-powered jet flight next year.

So the airlines are finally ready to do something about their dependence on fossil fuels? Of course there is an environmental benefit in using biofuels, but I doubt that they care about that. But they do care about their business’ complete dependence on cost and availability of fossil fuels. For any transportation business it makes sense to encourage alternative fuel development, because alt. fuels will increase total fuel supply and keep the cost of fuel lower.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Biodiesel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.