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Move over expensive fuels for airplanes, there’s a new sheriff in town. A New Zealand airliner recently completed a successful two hour flight partially fueled by vegetable oil.

The plane, a passenger Boeing 747-400, was filled with a half-and-half mix of plant oil and standard jet fuel. The plant fuel is derived from the jatropha plant, which is a plant native to Central America and is significantly cheaper than crude oil, or even other biofuels. Air New Zealand wants to use this 50-50 mixture in at least 10% of its planes by the year 2013.

"There's still a lot of analysis to be done but we achieved a lot with the test flight and the manoeuvres we've done. The aircraft performed flawlessly," said ANZ chief pilot Captain Dave Morgan, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Using this new blend of vegetable oil and jet fuel could bring a lot of changes to the airline industry, namely lower emissions and hopefully lower flight prices. Biofuels used to be considered impractical for use in airplanes, but after this New Zealand flight, that view is starting to change. The blend proposed by Air New Zealand would equal a one-quarter reduction of jet fuel’s carbon footprint.

Happy Thanksgiving! Wouldn't it be nice if everyone, everywhere in the world, could sit down, eat a nice meal, and give thanks with their friends and family today? There is A LOT of wasteful food and energy on this day, so please be responsible when celebrating Thanksgiving. Make every effort to compost the organics, and recycle/re-use everything else. One thing that unfortunately goes hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving is Black Friday, or the busiest shopping day of the year, that follows just one day after Thanksgiving. If you have plans to wake at 4am and shop till the sun goes down, please take a moment to think about the consequences. Most of the goods that are up for sale at 4am are items that were built cheap, which typically means built at the expense of the environment and people around the factory. Please don't run out and buy a bunch of items that have already taken a toll on our planet, and will eventually end up in a heap at your local landfill. Please, be responsible in your shopping. Thanks, and have a great couple of days.

An astounding 78 percent of voters, surveyed in post-election polls, believe investing in green technologies is needed in order to revitalize our broken economy. Many of those polled in the survey also claimed that global warming needed to be an area of great focus for this new U.S. administration. There was much support among the youngest voters, and that helps ensure that education and awareness is running strong with the generation of people who have the most at stake. Now we need to follow through on this! You can read more about the post-election poll at Zogby International.

Green Groove is very excited to promote the National Recycling Coalition's "America Recycles Day" this November 15th. There couldn't be a better way for Green Groove participants to be a part of this great day than by going to their website to take the pledge. If you are making progress on your goals, and need to ratchet things up a notch, don't miss out on this opportunity to educate yourself on the importance of recycling. Get involved, do it, go now - http://www.nrc-recycle.org/americarecycles.aspx

Good 50x70 has a web page listing their 2008 poster entries for the global warming category (just click on the Good 50x70 link to go directly to the gallery). Not sure how long it has been up, and if this is old news, but thought it was worth writing a post on it anyway. It is very easy to slip into the green mindset that taking care of yourself, and the planet, is only the common sense thing to do, but we have to remember that there are actually high stakes involved in ignoring global warming. Viewing some of the poster entries are pretty good reminders that serious issues such as rising sea waters, extinction of various species of animals, and the fate of mankind are all at risk if we fail to act. A big THANK YOU goes out to all the Green Groove participants.

The challenge was developed to inspire the next president of the United States to take action on global warming. Currently there have been more than 100 submissions, and the judges are narrowing down the winners from the remaining sixteen finalists. Tuesday, the winners will be announced on Brighter Planet's Vimeo Channel.

The winning videos will be on national tv, and distributed to Congress and the presidential candidates. Let's hope they watch them! Click on the continue reading link below to see one of my favorite videos.

ABC, CBS, and CNN all ran ads from the oil and coal lobby last night after the second presidential debate, but nowhere did you see the latest "'we' can solve the climate crisis" ad put out by wecansolveit.org. In fact, "we" hasn't even been able to get a response from ABC as to why they won't air the ad. You can take action, and hopefully get ABC to run the ad this Friday during 20/20, by going to the petition page to let ABC know that you expect to see it during the airing.

If you'd like to view the add, please click continue below this article to see the ad for yourself.

Rocket scientist, Alberto Behar, recently released 90 rubber bathtub ducks into Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier in an attempt to track their movement toward Baffin Bay. Since the water that travels below the glacier acts as a lubricant to help move the ice toward the ocean, much can be learned from the rubber duck experiment that wouldn't be possible by simply studying the surface. For the time being, the researcher will sit back and wait for any email responses from anyone lucky enough to stumble upon one of the ducks. Learn more by reading the article in USA Today.