Virgin Atlantic announced that it has joined forces with Chevy's "Project Driveway" program. Richard Branson's airline is going to use three Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for its "complimentary ground transfer service for upper class passengers" for planes landing at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The program will last for 30 months. Virgin and Chevrolet are studying the possibility to expand this service to New York.

Branson stated that this program was one of Virgin's initiatives to reduce the airline's carbon footprint. GM's Larry Burns said that it was a perfect endorsement of GM's fuel cell technology and "an important new avenue for demonstrating the new DNA of the automobile."

The Chevy Equinox looks like a conventional production car but the ICE has been with a fuel cell system plus a nickel-metal hydride battery pack under the floor of the vehicle. It's got three compressed hydrogen storage tanks made of carbon fiber and pressurized to 10,000 pounds per square inch (psi). The tanks contain roughly nine pounds (4.2 kg) of hydrogen good for a range of approximately 150 miles (220 km). Full press release after the jump.

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson made headlines recently when he knocked the way Americans produce ethanol. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Branson fleshed out his ideas on ways America can improve the way it produces the alcohol fuel. Thirty minutes in, he says sugar produces seven times more ethanol than corn per acre and would not emit CO₂. Branson also said sugar would not mean cutting down the rain forest because there is plenty of it and the price is at an all-time low.

The best argument Branson gave is that "sugar-based ethanol would be cheaper than conventional fuels imported from the Middle East." Of course, if we lived in Branson's world, we may not have to worry about making fuel from plants at all. He explained that his plans for going into space with Virgin Galactic could one day help fuel the world: just "two space ships full of helium 3 [from the moon] will power America's electricity for a year," he said. Space mining sounds interesting, but what if that space ship crashes?

Related:

• Richard Branson, Mayor Bloomberg slam biofuels
• Soon at a pump near you: Virgin Fuels
• Branson looks towards Virgin territory: biofuel
• Richard Branson promotes alternative fuel movement by driving a Saab 9-5 BioPower

[Source: Google Video]

Criticisms of biofuels just keep piling up. At a UN Assembly debate on Climate Change, New York Mayor Bloomberg framed the biofuel food vs. fuel debate starkly saying "people literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up." At the same meeting, according to the BBC video above, billionaire Richard Branson, once a big proponent of biofuels (see links below) now says he regrets investing in ethanol for financial and environmental reasons.

All of that criticism comes just days after a Science magazine study says biofuels can be twice as harmful as gasoline (see video below). If you look closely at what the Science Magazine scientists, Richard Branson, Mayor Bloomberg and others have said about biofuels, they are not saying biofuels are all bad, they're just criticizing the way they are predominantly made today (see: corn ethanol in America). How do you support a fuel that can be worse than the gas you are trying to replace?

While the UN is trying several things, in a world where the U.S. can hardly tell what's in its toys, it's doubtful much can be done, in the short term, to assure the green production of the internationally. However, all of the market investment may not be for naught as if projects like Coskata get to market faster or if biofuels are given more research attention.

Related:

• Richard Branson promotes alternative fuel movement by driving a Saab 9-5 BioPower
• Soon at a pump near you: Virgin Fuels
• Boeing and Virgin Atlantic to work on biofuels for aircraft
• Branson looks towards Virgin territory: biofuel

[Source: Reuters, BBC, NBC Nightly News]