Launching low carbon fuel with Virgin Atlantic
- Oct 11, 2011
Today I am in London to announce one of the most exciting developments of our lifetime and a major breakthrough in the war on carbon.
Virgin Atlantic, with our partners LanzaTech, is developing a world-first low-carbon aviation fuel that will halve its carbon footprint.
This could turn aviation from a dirty industry to one of the cleanest.
Industrial processes produce vast amounts of waste energy - we are going to capture this and (he says modestly) very cleverly turn it into jet fuel.
In a nutshell, we are entering the recycling business. We will be recycling waste products, taking much of the s**t from up the chimney stacks and turning it into aviation fuel.
We're starting with steel production, capturing waste gases from 65% of the world’s steel mills, capturing, fermenting and chemically converting it for use as a jet fuel.
Within three years we aim to fly Virgin Atlantic planes with the new fuel on flights from Shanghai to London and Delhi to London, and to follow this with operations in the UK and the rest of the world.
Like all the best ideas, this is a simple idea, but it is truly groundbreaking. Amusingly, only three or four years ago former British Airways Chief Executive Willie Walsh said of my announcement about biofuels being the future that it was a PR stunt and biofuels would never work. It's great to prove him wrong.
This is a major step towards radically reducing our carbon footprint (and ultimately all other airlines' carbon footprints) and a momentous day for Virgin Atlantic and the future of sustainable aviation.
Go to Virgin Atlantic’s Change Is In The Air website to find out more.
