Word: jetting
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John McCain has 22 pets, including a ferret, two turtles, and three parakeets. Mike Huckabee has just two: a black Labrador named Jet and a Shih Tzu with the oddly non-conformist name of Sonic. As First Lady, Hillary Clinton wrote a book titled, “Dear Socks, Dear Buddy” featuring letters that children had written to the First Pets, but now she just has Seamus the Labrador. Barack Obama has no pets, but true to the politics of hope, he has promised his two daughters he will get a dog when the election finishes...
...required no equipment modifications at all; the plane flew to 25,000 feet (7,600 m) without incident; and the environmental benefits seem clear, at least once the fuel is loaded onto the plane. Internal company testing suggests the biofuel, when burned, releases just half the emissions of conventional jet fuel...
...happens, Virgin's eco-plane ran only one engine on the experimental fuel; the other three burned standard jet fuel. And the biofuel-powered engine was using a blend of conventional jet fuel and biofuel: 80/20 in favor of the regular stuff. In total, then, just 5% of the 49,000-lb (22,000 kg) fuel load consisted of the novelty: a special mix of coconut oil and oil from the Brazilian babassu plant, prepared by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables over the last 18 months and tested by General Electric Aviation in Ohio...
...Down the line, say Branson and Imperium Renewables CEO John Plaza, biofuel producers are more interested in jatropha, a thorny plant that grows well on non-agricultural land in Latin America and Africa. They're also interested in farming algae, which Branson calls "the jet fuel of the future." Development of those feedstocks does look promising, but commercial mass production is still years off. And getting regulatory approval for the new jet fuel could take several years as well. So if biofuel ever takes off in aviation, it will likely be a decade before it has any noticeable impact...
...Just before 12:30 at Heathrow, Virgin Atlantic's 747 touched down in Amsterdam, finishing off the event without a hiccup - which is more than could be said for Branson himself. For kicks, the mogul had drunk a sample of his firm's coconut oil and babassu oil jet-fuel blend. "My God that was horrible," he told reporters afterward. "I've been burping ever since." Now that, without a doubt, is a publicity stunt...