It is nice, for a change, to hear about one of our nation's giant commercial operators, that being Continental-United Airlines, putting into action some of the "green" promises and announcements that so many companies have been issuing lately. On Monday, November 7th, the airline flew a Boeing 737-800 plane from Houston to Chicago's O'Hare airport using a fuel blend that partially consisted (40 percent) of oil produced by genetically modified algae that feed off plant waste and produces oil. Imagine that, folks! And to boot, Alaska Airlines, on Wednesday, November 9th, was scheduled to begin flights over the next several weeks utilizing a fuel blend containing 20 percent recycled cooking oil, with the company claiming that the biofuel blend will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. Again, how about that, folks!
Yes, there still remain formidable challenges and problems to overcome and solve but the situation here is excitingly clear: the airlines have begun the commercialization of a clean energy source, and they being major consumers of fossil fuels as well as significant producers of carbon emissions (2 percent of total carbon emissions in 2000, on the way to 3 percent by 2030), this is good news indeed. Major beneficiaries include our overloaded atmosphere, our burgeoning clean energy industry, including its investors, and people, plants, and animals everywhere. Congratulations to Continental-United Airlines, to Alaska Airlines, and to Solazyme Inc., the company which produced and provided the biofuel for Monday's Continental flight. May you put those algae to good use!
