Twist, crack, squeeeeeze – You’re packed like a tetris piece between a crying baby and a veritable beluga in a coach-class airplane seat; the sweat pools in your jeans as you curse the airline industry for discontinuing free, unlimited drinks. The price of travel. Stale breath on your shoulder. Snores in your ear. Strange knees rub against your leg, sending confusing signals to your fried brain. Brendan Fraser on the big screen. You want to cry out. The stewardess backs through the curtain that separates the passenger castes; you catch a brief glimpse of the scum in first class – stretched out, sipping cocktails, watching Will Ferrell. You grab the stewardess by the lappels and demand justice. Equality! But, she explains, without those scum paying for first class tickets the airline might not be able to run at all. Defeated, you shift yourself into an L-shaped tetris piece and drop into your seat, wishing airlines could could find another way to be powered by scum.
Well, defeated passenger, tomorrow that wish might come true.
According to the Register, Continental airlines says it will carry out “the first biofuel flight by a commercial carrier using algae as a fuel source” at 11:15am tomorrow morning at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.
Airline executives and Boeing’s managing director in charge of environmental strategy will be in attendance to watch the flight of the 737-800 jet, which will be powered entirely by a biofuel mix made from sustainable, second-generation fuel-source ingredients such as jatropha nuts and algae.
Unlike many first-generation biofuels such as corn and palm oil, algae production would not result in a displacement of farmlands or deforestation.
Can this scum clean up the gassy airline industry? Will it result in cheaper operating costs and therefore better comfort for all passengers? Or will it simply crawl out of the fuel tanks and take a seat in first class?
[Via: The Register]
