In Business: Flying Green
BBC Radio 4

This nicely sceptical enquiry (19 September) addressed the question of whether there will ever come a time when travellers can rack up the air miles without peril to their conscience. It began suitably enough in Norway, whose environmentally conscious government has set ambitious sustainability targets, with presenter Katie Prescott and the local expert reconnoitring an aircraft hanger crammed with gargantuan tubs of kerosene.

The Norwegian plan is to hit 30 per cent biofuel usage by 2030. And what, Ms Prescott wondered, was the current figure? The local expert gamely conceded that it was something under 0.2 per cent – all down to plummeting oil prices, you see, and the fact that there is at present no continuous production. Still, the man from Air BP – the tour had moved on to London by now – reckoned that the goal was achievable. Provided, that is, you could conjure up 150 million tons of the stuff from the 800 or so factories that would be required to make the scheme a viable proposition…