Healing the planet: In an attempt to avoid price gyrations in fuel that costs a little over $3, Alaska Air buys fuel that costs $17

Flying on Chicken Fat - NYTimes.com

None of these fuels is quite ready for prime time. Alaska paid $17 a gallon for the blend, whereas conventional jet fuel costs a little over $3. It’s like using kobe beef to stretch supplies of Hamburger Helper.

...The 15,000 gallons is little more than a drop in the bucket: the 737 that Alaska flies to Washington will burn almost 900 gallons of fuel per hour in the air.

”Obviously, we didn’t do this because in the short run it was an economically rational thing to do,’’ said Keith Loveless, the airline’s general counsel. “But our view is you have to start somewhere.”

The airlines say they are determined to nurture new technologies that will free them from the gyrations of the world oil market. This could take a while. Ethanol is plentiful, but not nearly as abundant as gasoline, and its price tends to swing with the price of the gasoline for which it substitutes.