One day, maybe, planes will be able fly on electricity alone, but until then, the best chance they have to get off gasoline is to switch over to biofuels. And that's actually happening! Over the summer, two biofueled flights made it across the Atlantic, and now Alaska Airlines is pushing an ambitious commercial biofuel flight program. Last week, the company flew across the country with a fuel that was 20 percent biofuel. The particular biofuel they used can come from algae, from chicken fat, or from a variety of other sources.
There's also a growing amount of healthy competition among airlines to hit biofuel "firsts." Alaska Airlines' flight was supposed to be the first commercial flight to use a biofuel blend. But United Airlines jumped ahead in line and sent an algae-fueled flight up just days before the Alaska Airlines flight was scheduled for takeoff. Hey, we’d rather see them competing over this than over who can charge most for bags and be the most tightfisted with the damn peanuts.
