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Does flying cost the Earth?
Can technology help make planes greener?
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Biodiesel fuel
Source: iStockphoto/Sophia Winters
- Emission cuts
- Estimates vary
- Timescale
- 5 years
- Cost
- 5/5
- Effort
- Quite hard
- Passenger popularity
- 5/5
Biodiesel is a fuel made from plants, and could be a greener alternative to conventional plane fuel reducing CO2 emissions. It's difficult to say how much biodiesel might cut emissions - it depends on how much fossil fuel is used to make it. It's already being tested in the latest planes and would be quite easy to implement, but would need to be mixed with normal jet fuel to stop it freezing. There are also concerns that forests could be cleared to make way for biofuel plantations.