A Virgin Atlantic 747 flight will be made using industrial waste gas fuel tonight


Tonight a Virgin Atlantic 747 flight will take off a little after 7pm ET heading to Gatwick airport in London from Orlando Florida. The flight happening tonight will be the first to use jet fuel that is made from industrial waste gas. The recycled mixture that comes from a steel mill in China will be mixed with regular jet fuel to ensure that it is safe and efficient to use. This type of fuel aims to displace the petroleum based fuel that normally fills up the tanks of the jets.

LanzaTech is the company behind the innovative fuel blend that estimates that this new fuel will reduce greenhouse emissions by more than 70 percent. This figured is comparative to the regular burning of jet fuel. The company also explained that the waste gas fuel can be produced from a variety of different gases. However the fuel that is being used in the flight tonight will consist mostly of waster carbon monoxide that has been polluted into the air from steel plants.

LanzaTech collects the harmful gases from steel mills and feeds the gas through proprietary microbes that create alcohol by eating the gases. The alcohols can then be refined into hydrocarbons that then can be turned into fuel.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is partnering with LanzaTech to create the eco-friendlier fuel for commercial flights. PNNL said in a press release today that the fuel mixture can be used for low-carbon products such as alcohol to jet fuel. The company also mentioned that the fuel mixture has been approved for commercial flights by being compromised of 50 percent of the waste gas. The flight that is happening tonight only has a 5 percent mixture.

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