Richard Branson`s Virgin Atlantic announces low carbon fuel initiative [Video]

If there is one thing that you can definitely say about Richard Branson it is that he isn’t lacking of hyperbole when it comes to promoting his projects, and his newest announcement today was no exception.

Branson was in London to announce another of his continuing initiatives to lower the carbon footprint of his prize airline – Virgin Atlantic.

Calling it one of the most exciting developments of our lifetime, as well as being a major breakthrough on the ‘war on carbon’ Branson announced that in partnership with LanzaTech they are developing the world’s first low-carbon aviation fuel. It is believed that the new fuel will halve the airline’s current carbon footprint.

This new method calls for capturing the waste energy that typically escapes from heavy manufacturing plants via their huge smokestacks and through a recycling method turn that energy into aviation fuel.

Using this newly discovered method they believe that they can capture up to 65% of the waste energy from places like the world’s steel mills and after fermenting it as well as using a chemical conversion process they believe the results will be a usable jet fuel.

via Richard Branson