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How easy it is for Branson to clamor for GW initiatives, his limos and mansions are already bought and paid for.

Are the nutheads ready to denude coconut groves in order to provide fuel for jumbo-jets?

Symbolism over substance. This is not a truck, from which you could just walk away, should the fuel lines plug. As for me, I'd prefer known petroleum aviation products, whose properties are well known and long proven to remain liquid at the lower temperatures encountered in flight. I'd expect trans-fats would tend to congeal at higher temperatures than say, kerosene. Never mind the "carbon footprint," Never mind the energy to refine the food into fuel. I'd prefer to trust my life to BP and Exxon-Mobil.

I support biofuels, you morans don't understand that it makes sense. You want to hate on America, farmers are bad ass. End the subsidies or keep them, pay no mind to that.

Some of you guys pretend to be smart, oil is oil, hell we should use pig oil, and yes I am being somewhat serious.

"I'd prefer to trust my life to BP and Exxon-Mobil."

And that's exactly who you have entrusted your life to, and who's been dictating policy for years now.

Good luck with that...batman, little sheep boy.

I have to give Sir Richard the cudos for the incredible amount of liabity exposure he is extending with unproven fuel.

I think John Edwards is wringing his hands in anticipation to the first misshap of any Virgin planes using this fuel mix, that carries US Citizens.

Yup, John Edwards, now that he has faild in politics is looking for new pastures to graze on.

The first in flight misshap or whatever, will be blamed on the unproven fuel mix (no matter what the facts are) by Uber Trial Lawyers like John Edwards.

Ya Think?

Hash and Park Dude - one and the same.

You'all so stupid you don't even know the real origions of 'Red Neck' unless you google it.

You be supprised to see the results - in that you insult Red Necks as some kind of herpies but the origins are really socialist democratic in cause.

Asses (oops, I really have to stop that - meant Donkeys)

Wow, Capt. Parker. *We* don't understand that biofuels make sense? Are you serial? Does it really make sense to take a food product and burn it in an internal combustion engine? You damned morons (or morans, or maroons...pick whatever spelling works for you) wouldn't know good sense if it smacked you upside your empty noggins.

I am so suprised on the ignorance of this.

Nuclear power sounds fun, I acutaly support it.

But biofuels sound ok, seriously it is growing oil,

I personally would like to remove all gov subsidies, as sugar cane is an awsome fuel. Just amazed how closed mined all of you are.

If you thought lefties would be happy about this news, you obviously bought into the delusion that the environmental left wants us to stop being dependent on fossil-fuels. You thought wrong.

Kenneth Richter, of Friends of the Earth, said the flight was a "gimmick", distracting from real solutions to climate change. "What we need to do is stop this mad expansion of aviation. At the moment it is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the UK, and we need to stop subsidising the industry."

They don't really care about solving the fuel problem. To the environmental left, it's about regulating the peasants (i.e. us) back to a pre-industrial life style, while Al Gore, RFK jr, and Arianna Huffenpuff keep their private jets.

This British "nut" just happens to be one of the most successful entrpenuers in the history of England. He was actually honored by Margeret Thatcher and the Conservative party in the 80's.
He has recieved a knighthood in 1999. He makes generous contributions to many different charaties.

He happens to be worth about 7.8 Billion dollars, which is all you people really care about anyway.

Unfortunately, for you, he is concerned with envirionmental and humanitarian issues. Something that in your eyes makes a person a "nut".

The guy does more in one month than any of you have done your entire lives. He is active and engaged and therefore, you look down on him.

I'm sorry, but a look in the mirror will expose the true nuts around here...

Well, I was going to say, Branson is many things but a nut isn't one of them. Or perhaps he is, but that's beside the point.

Branson probably believes there's a commercial advantage in making a fuss about environmentalism so he's making a fuss about it. That's the way this thing is going everywhere; large concerns are seeing an advantage, either in the possibility of tax breaks or subsidy, so they're going for it. It's a short-term profit thing. If Branson could be accused of anything it's in taking advantage of the short-term gains to be had from jumping on the bandwagon without thinking through the implications of increased state control that will be the end result of these ventures.

I'm not agreeing with hashfanfanfanfan (who I suspect is projecting just a teensy bit with his last rant). I admire Branson for some of his decisions and I wonder just what posessed him to make others. The fact that he's rich is a testament to the idea that people can come from virtually nothing and end up rich but it doesn't put him on a pedestal. he's human, he makes mistakes like the rest of us. I wonder if, perhaps ,he's not thinking as hard as he used to, though, considering the debacle of his involvement in Virgin Rail and the mess his company made of the recent Sky TV/Virgin TV thing...

But not a nut.

Personally, I would prefer to keep fuel alternative experimentation on the ground. The worst that happens is you get stalled out and stranded. Doing a dive into the planet in an air craft because a fuel fails isn't exactly good for the environment or people either. Alternative fuels isn't a bad idea, but if people are only interested in using "global warming" (a hoax according to the real scientists) as a ploy to "control the masses", while they warm the engines on their private jets (like Al Gore) then I want no part of that.

If anyone actually bothered to read the article, you'd see that no one, including branson, has any illusions regarding the feasibility of the type of bio-fuel used here. I know, I know, reading is such a chore....

And Archonix, I realize it pains you to no end, but you ARE agreeing with me.

"Personally, I would prefer to keep fuel alternative experimentation on the ground."

I wonder where the Wright Brothers, or NASA, for that matter would be, using your twisted logic HoosierMOM...

Do you really believe, tthat no experimenatation with this type of fuel was carried out "on the ground"? Do you think they just chucked an airplane up there and hoped it would fly? You people really don't understand science do you? Oh, I forgot, you prove that every day.

Even Moonbat commie Fidel Castro says using food for fuel is a nutty idea. And just because someone is a successful businessman doesnt mean he cant be nutty - look at Howard Hughs.

As many pointed out this is yet more style over substance. Even if this reduced the planes CO2 a few % points matter in the slightest? No. It will however do three things - drive up food prices, result in forrest loss to grow this stuff and drive up the cost of flying. Of course billionaire windbags like Branson dont care - they are rich and dont care how expensive food or flying becomes.

Biofuels can be a part of the mix, depending on how they are made and how they are used. The ethanol mandate is beyond retarded. But, if bio-fuels can be synthesized from sea algae, organic refuse, and agricultural waste, then it makes sense to use them. Airline travel may not be a good fit, but trucks and trains seem to run pretty well on bio-diesel. The Israelis are working on a bio-engineered bacteria that eats organic waste and secretes hyrdrocarbon fuel.

We can also, for that matter, replace a lot of plastic packaging with cellulose-based packaging.

The thing is, we don't have to revert to a nineteenth century lifestyle and we don't have to remain utterly dependent on jihadist regimes for fuel. That should be the point of alternative fuels research... not moonbat rantings about ManBearPig.

Tip of the Day: Heather McDonald on the "Campus Rape" Industry. The moonbat-run university system has succeeded in bureaucratizing sex. One part of the bureaucracy revels in "sex week," commissioning "sex worker art exhibitions," and encouraging the hook-up culture, while another part stands ready to pounce on any male who runs afoul of any female's complaint. Any woman on campus who hooks up with a guy and then is disappointed when he doesn't call her again can accuse him of 'date rape,' and he is presumed guilty unless proven innocent.

And they wonder why women outnumber men on college campuses 55 to 45 per cent. It also probably explains why some men are turning gay; it definitely avoids the minefields of feminism.

So all you biofuel cretins, Parker, Hash, you are okay with using the precious resources of soil and water and plants on such a massive scale that mankind has never known before (meaning that YOUR neighborhood might be forcibly commandeered to grow biofuel) just to please your rock star idols instead of the clean efficient proven methods of extracting petroleum? They're both natural products you know? Realyl, what's the difference other than you will see them growing the fuel in your backyard.

"I personally would like to remove all gov subsidies, as sugar cane is an awsome fuel."

While it's easier and (slightly) cheeper to turn sugar into "ethanol", it's only 80% as efficent as gasoline. That means fewer miles per gallon, lower speeds, less performance and more fuel burned. Hardly what anyone would "awsome".
Don't you Liberals love the RAINFORRESTS any more? They are being cut down to grow corn. How is it "BETTER" to cut down a hundred acers of forrest to grow biofuels than to cut down ONE acer to drill an oil well?

KHarn -

Don't forget the fact that ethanol is also more costly (meaning more carbon) in that any ME will tell you that engines do not last as long without exotic metal coatings and tweeking.

As the world starves, the Moonbats are put into a feel good state of feeling over crushing the basic cost benefit ration and return on investment costs of ...... well anything.

I just don't get why liberalism is truly a mental condition (no, have not read Ann's book yet)