Branson tries out nuts for fuel!

Richard Branson's Virgin Airlines pulled an aerodynamic biofuel stunt on Sunday morning. They put a 20% biodiesel mixture that used oil from coconuts and babassu nuts in one of the four engines. They flew the Boeing 747 from London's Heathrow airport out to Amsterdam. This is the first flight using any alternative fuel.

Once again, Branson pledges his support to use biofuels in a rowdy public way. Which has of course, led to accusations of greenwashing. Unfortunately, the ever-common mud is flung that biolfuels do not make a net reduction in greenhouse emissions, because of farming practices, rainforest destruction, and the absence of out of the box thinking.

Most sincere environmentalists know that the only viable biofuels would be made from waste vegetable oil, or small, fast growing, non-food sources, i.e. algae. Branson told msnbc that, " It's true that there's only room for about 10 percent of the fuel supply in the U.S. to be derived from ethanol before it starts eating into the food supply. After that you've got to go to cellulose, and I believe by the time it gets to 10 percent we will have developed a way of making cellulosic possible."

So while Branson is being accused of greenwashing, he just putters along continuing to find reasonable ways to change our fuel sources, while staying open-minded about the future of fuel.