Sustainable Air Travel Takes Off

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Last Thursday, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Flight 642 completed the seven hour and 17 minute flight from New York's JFK Airport to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol using sustainable biofuels. Flight KL642, operated by a Boeing 777-200, will fly every Thursday fueled by recycled cooking oil as part of the Dutch carrier's goal to have one percent of its flights operate on biofuels by 2015. For five years, KLM has experimented with various forms of biofuels in order to try to reduce its carbon footprint. First was the attempt to fuel 12 Fokker-50 planes with algae-based biofuel. Bio-kerosene was an experiment a year later, and as many as 200 short hop flights are now powered by a 50-50 blend of kerosene and recycled cooking oil.

Last Thursday, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Flight 642 completed the seven hour and 17 minute flight from New York's JFK Airport to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol using sustainable biofuels. Flight KL642, operated by a Boeing 777-200, will fly every Thursday fueled by recycled cooking oil as part of the Dutch carrier's goal to have one percent of its flights operate on biofuels by 2015.

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For five years, KLM has experimented with various forms of biofuels in order to try to reduce its carbon footprint. First was the attempt to fuel 12 Fokker-50 planes with algae-based biofuel. Bio-kerosene was an experiment a year later, and as many as 200 short hop flights are now powered by a 50-50 blend of kerosene and recycled cooking oil.

The flight on March 8, however, was an exciting development for clean energy within the aviation industry because sustainable biofuel powered that 777-200 across the Atlantic.

The now-weekly flight, possible thanks to the deep-frying of french fries and falafels, was the result of over a year of cooperation between KLM, Schiphol Group, Delta Air Lines and the Port Authority. SkyNRG, which KLM co-founded with ARGOS (North Sea Petroleum) and Spring Associates, distributed the fuel–which the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels recently approved as the first 100 percent-certified renewable jet fuel. KLM's managers insisted biofuels were only an option if the product did not interfere with biodiversity, local development or any food supplies.

Boeing 777 KLM approaches JFK photo via Shutterstock.

Read more at ENN Affiliate TriplePundit.