If you flight smells like McDonald’s, don’t sweat it
A Continental Airlines flight made history this week when it landed at O’Hare International Airport to become the first revenue passenger trip in the US pioneered by biofuel. One implication for passengers: do not be alarmed if your aircraft begins to smell suspiciously like a fast-food restaurant.
Or pond scum either.
What is happening: wire services reported US airlines have been racing to demonstrate their clean energy credentials with flights powered partially by biofuels.
Continental Airlines Flight 1403 in a Boeing 737-800 was the first. It was painted in the new environmental “green jet fuel” made up partially of genetically modified algae that feed off plant waste.
Other airlines are following the same route.
Alaska Airlines, for example, announced it would operate 75 flights using a mix of 80 percent conventional jet fuels and 20 percent biofuels starting this week.
“We wanted to demonstrate the use of sustainable biofuels both on a transcontinental route and on a short haul that competes with ground vehicle traffic," Bobbie Egan, a spokeswoman for Alaska, said in an interview with the Guardian.
"We can use vegetable oil. We can use used cooking oil," said Robert Ames, vice president of Dynamic Fuels, which produces the products. He added McDonald’s used fryer grease is also a good ingredient.
Airline experts say the use of the biofuels mix cuts greenhouse gas emissions on those particular flights by 10 percent.
The cooking oil substitutes cost as much as six times more, experts say. Tyson Foods-owned Dynamic Fuels is the only producer so far, according to wire services.
More U.S. airlines are expected to join the effort to fly more cleanly — and eventually more economically — than the use of traditional, petroleum-based Jet-A fuel allows. That is based on a crude oil price of $100 a barrel or higher, experts told The Chicago Tribune.
But the paper added there are many questions about the potential for the fuel to become an economic alternative to traditional sources and what the cost will be.
By David Wilkening
David
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