With airlines scrambling to manage the rising costs of jet fuel, losing money on most flights, solutions have been oddly out of sight. That is until Sustainable Power gets their biofuel for jets to the market. Sustainable Power just tested a 90% jetfuel/10% biofuel mix with great results.

If 10% biofuel seems low, just think on a larger scale. In 2007, US domestic flights consumed almost 20 billion gallons of jetfuel, now running almost $10 a gallon. Ten percent of those numbers makes an impact. Larger proportions of biofuel mixes may become feasible with testing.

Finding an alternative to jet fuel has become a popular mission. Virgin Atlantic ran a flight using biofuel, big name corporations (Honeywell, Jetblue, Airbus, IAE) have teamed to develop alternative jet fuels, and Pratt and Whitney Canada is working on a similar effort.

They can’t accomplish their task fast enough, as the airline cuts costs -- and jobs -- to pay for fuel. So far, airlines have done what they can to temper costs through diminishing in air services such as food and movie offerings and charging for the weight of additional suitcases.

Introducing sustainable, cleaner biofuels to commercial plane fuel mixes would provide positive environmental benefits, as well. Commercial air travel produces a disproportionately high level of greenhouse gases  for the size of their industry.