Because air travel has been made responsible for 3 percent of global greenhouse emission it is time to make a switch.
This year the European Union directed to all airlines to cut down their usage of fossil fuels in planes. All airlines company which operate out of European Union countries have to reduce carbon emission by 3 percent until 2012. Different companies had different approaches about using alternative fuel.
KLM, the major Dutch airline want to achieve the Green Sky target by using alternative fuel in its fleet of planes starting from July this year. The Amsterdam Airport Shiphol work in the same way, their common project is to recycle the cooking oil, called bio-kerosene, in order to power their fleet of ground vehicles. Bio-kerosene is the derivate of used frying oil sourced from hotels, restaurants and factories and refined in the US. This alternative fuel meets the technical specifications of traditional kerosene but safer than it.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has been using electric vehicles but even these are not 100 percent carbon dioxide neutral. Now, the airport use fully recycled BioDiesel, for almost 40 vehicles in the ground fleet. The alternative fuel has been adopted on a pilot basis for four months by Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Ground vehicles powered by this alternative fuel include bird control trucks to delivery vans. According to Ad Rutten, Executive Vice President & COO of Schiphol Group, if this experiment succeeds, then the Amsterdam Airport could eventually and completely switch to this alternative fuel for all its ground operations.
However, the route to fully sustainable energy seems enormously challenging if one goes by the experience of KLM. Attaining continuous access to sustainable alternative fuel is perhaps the more intimidating one of them. Airlines, which have experimented with similar green fuels in the past and mixed ones, too have faced this dragging challenge. Virgin, Air New Zealand, Air Japan and Continental Airlines too have reported lack of a regular and enough supply of green fuel for operating their scheduled flights.
