Seaweed as jet fuel

For airlines, the solution to soaring fuel prices might be as simple as seaweed.
Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand, and Boeing are working together to create the world’s first green aviation fuel made from pond-grown algae.
Higher fuel prices and growing concerns over environmental damage caused by conventional aviation fuel are driving plans to produce biofuels based on algae.
Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson says that the concept has “huge potential,” adding, that it’s a source of energy that “doesn’t lead to deforestation or take away land or water from the cultivation of essential food crops.”
Why algae? Scientists say it can grow incredibly fast – doubling in size in a few hours – and it does not need fresh water or good quality land.
Thick green algae produces at least 15 times more oil per hectare than alternatives such as palm oil, soya or jatropha, a nut-bearing shrub cultivated in several countries as a biofuel.
Separately, Continental Airlines, Boeing, and GE Aviation is hoping to flight test a type of biofuel in 2009. Green Car Congress reported in March that green fuels are ready for takeoff.

The Continental Airlines biofuel flight will use a Boeing Next-Generation 737 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines, using a blend of between 20%-50% of a second-generation biofuel in one engine.

Although they have yet to select the type of biofuel to use, the partners say that it will be a second-generation fuel that does not impact food production. It will also be able to be produced in sufficient quantities to support a pre-flight test schedule that includes laboratory and ground-based jet engine performance testing to ensure compliance with stringent aviation fuel performance and safety requirements.
In February 2008, Virgin Atlantic, Boeing, GE Aviation, and Imperium Renewables successfully flight-tested a Boeing 747 equipped with GE engines using a 20 percent blend of a biojet fuel—a transesterified bio-kerosene — derived from babassu and coconut oil in one engine.
This sounds good. But with fuel prices likely to fall now that Saudi Arabia has decided to increase oil production, will these alternative fuel initiatives endure?
Only time will tell.