Virgin Atlantic tests biofuel in flight

Virgin Atlantic was to conduct the world's first commercial aircraft flight powered with biofuel yesterday, drawing mixed reactions.

The goal was to show on a England-to-Netherlands flight that biofuels would produce less carbon emissions than conventional jet fuels.

Some praised the Boeing 747 test flight as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt by Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson and noted it comes as scientists are questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels.

"It's great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation," said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London stockbroker Dawnay Day Lochart.

"But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming," he said.

Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles predicted biofuel would produce much less carbon-dioxide emissions than regular jet fuel, but said it will take weeks to analyze the data from yesterday's flight.

The flight was just the latest example of how some airlines are jumping on the environmental bandwagon and trying to find ways of reducing the industry's carbon footprint.

These efforts have included everything from finding alternative jet fuels, to developing engines that burn existing fuels more slowly, to changing the way planes land.

The experiment by Virgin Atlantic and its partners -- Boeing and General Electric -- also comes at a time when high oil prices and the US economic slowdown are promoting consolidation in the airline industry.

Aircraft cause noise pollution and emit gases and particulates that reduce air quality and contribute to global warming and global dimming, where dust and ash from natural and industrial sources block the sun to create a cooling effect.

About year ago, the European Commission said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation account for about 3 percent of the total in the EU and have increased by 87 percent since 1990 as air travel cheapened.

Charles Virgin's Boeing 747-400 jet and its engines did not have to be redesigned to use an existing biofuel on the one-hour test flight from Heathrow Airport to Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam.

He said carbon emissions on a normal flight are generally three times the fuel burned and that technical engineers on the test flight will take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions.

But recent scientific studies have found that almost all biofuels cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full emissions costs of producing these "green" fuels are considered.

To support biofuel development, a large amount of land is being converted to cropland globally. The destruction of forests releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed and deprives the planet of natural sponges that absorb carbon emissions. In addition, cropland absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

That is one reason Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford University, questioned the test flight's value.

"The recent studies are just the latest ones to show problems with biofuels," he said.

Even if biofuels reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, airlines will still produce significant pollution in the form of particles and oxides of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, Jacobson said.

He also said that such test flights should be evaluated by independent scientists, not just technicians working for the companies involved.