Fly green with British Airways
Fly green with British Airways
(Okay, as green as you can fly.) British Airways is taking a revolutionary step as it commits to build Europe’s first facility “to produce jet fuel from waste matter” within the next two years.
You’ll be able to support British Airways’ efforts and fly green by 2014.
The company will take 500,000 tons of crap (probably not literally) annually in its United Kingdom plant to produce 15 million gallons of fuel for its airplanes. As many as 1,200 people will gain work from the operation and countless others will be able to fly green.
Although the company’s plant will produce twice the amount of necessary fuel for all its flights leaving from London City Airport, this will allow just 2% of customers leaving from Heathrow to fly green. At the beginning, the facility will likely not work at full capacity.
But hey, it’s a start – and a kickass one at that!
The idea is that by reducing the amount of waste with high carbon content that reaches landfills by 500,000 tons a year, less methane will be released into the atmosphere. Note: methane is more harmful than carbon dioxide. Speaking of which, cough, don’t eat meat, cough.
United States company Solena Group will construct the plant and British Airways will purchase its output so its customers can fly green and clean (I’m a poet and I didn’t even …).
Here’s how it will work:
The waste is fed into a high temperature “gasifier” to produce BioSynGas.
A chemical process called Fischer Tropsch is then used to convert the gas into biofuel.
Waste products from the process can be used to power the plant as well as supply 20MW of electricity to the national grid.
A solid waste product can be used as an aggregate in construction.
Sweet. That’s a biofuel I can be happy about.
Um, ironically, the fuel is not currently certified for use in the UK, although it is certified in other countries. But fear not! British Airways is positive it will acquire certification so you can fly green by 2014, when Solena Group will begin producing the waste-matter fuel.
The fuel will be used alone or mixed with traditional kerosene.
Hey, I’m excited! I always feel guilty when I fly (and drive, and … a lot of things). Now I’ll be able to fly green, baby! (“Baby” is so silly. But what’s a good alternative? I hesitate to say “dude.” Maybe “sistah”?)
Thoughts? Are you as excited as I am to fly green?
