Look, up in the air!

We’ve written about algae before, and now it seems like the goop is really gaining some traction in the biofuels world, and especially in aviation.

It’s no secret that airlines have been struggling for the past several years, and the skyrocketing cost of fuel is only making things worse, so it’s encouraging to see several aircraft companies taking the lead in promoting biofuels.

In February, Virgin Atlantic was the first to get biofuels into the air, testing a Boeing 747 running partly on fuel made from coconut and babassu oil, and Air New Zealand said last week it plans to test biofuels later this year. The carrier expects that 10 percent of its fuel needs will come from biofuels by 2013, replacing about a million barrels of jet fuel.

But most of the excitement in the air comes from algae. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, JetBlue and Airbus have all said they are developing planes that will run on algae-fuel, and the concept got a huge boost last month from Boeing.

The aircraft giant is one of the main backers of a new group, the Algal Biomass Organization, dedicated to commercializing algae as a source of fuel. In fact, it’s the only major company represented on the group’s steering committee; the rest are all academics, scientists, consultants and investors.

There are plenty of plusses to algae: it grows quickly, consumes little water, and can be produced almost anywhere, so it does not compete with food crops. Oh, and as it grows, it can be used to clean the gunk out of polluted water and suck carbon dioxide and other green house gases out of the air. This keeps getting better and better.

According to Billy Glover, Boeing’s managing director for environmental strategy and one of the co-chairs of the Algal Biomass Organization’s steering committee, “Boeing recognizes that algae biomass holds tremendous potential for use as jet fuel, and it fits into our plan to guide aviation toward commercially viable and sustainable fuel sources – fuels with substantially smaller greenhouse gas footprints that do not compete with food or require unacceptable quantities of land and fresh water resources.”