06:06 pm - Wednesday
A hope for Campania and Alitalia? Voilà the garbage-fuelled airplane
London, United Kingdom - The experiment of two English eco-adventurers
(WAPA) - And what if the garbage would suddenly transform itself into a valuable energy-supply source? Italy, which in these months looks with horror at its Region Campania flooded by uncollected waste, would discover itself as a Country rich of raw materials all at once. And if what Andy Pag, British engineer converted to journalism and adventure, has in mind, would actually work, it could really be a light of hope, for a Nation struggling not just with an energetic crisis and chaos in the waste-processing system, but also with an airline indebted up to its neck.
Together with his partner John Grimshaw, the intrepid Englishman has just come back from Timbuktu, in the African State of Mali, which they had reached from England with a truck fuelled by... chocolate. In fact, in order to obtain 2000 liters of biofuel, 4,000 kilos of cocoa butter, waste of chocolate production, were employed; with these, the two travelled the more than 7000 kilometers which divide the British islands (we suppose that they employed ships or planes to overcome the sea narrows) from the African country. Aim of the trip was to demonstrate the potential of biofuel-powered-engines, which do not emit carbon or other poison into the atmosphere.
The next eco-trip, already planned by the two, foresees instead the use of a motor paraglider, that will have to carry the two as far as China, and using as source of energy... waste. "Anything that goes to landfill sites" - Pag said namely- "Used tyres, wrapping paper, anything you put in your bin at home - can be used to make fuel". Let's wish them good luck: in a country as this, which suffers from waste surplus and fuel scarcity, it may be a useful source of inspiration... (Avionews)
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Direttore Clara Moschini