To Flush Or Fly

It’s just the second day of 2024, and I am having a challenging time reading a particular news story with a gag-worthy topic.

Today’s consideration? Oh boy, here we go! A company, Firefly Green Fuels, out of Gloucestershire, England, has discovered a means by which they can make jet fuel from human excrement. That’s right! Human poo!

It seems their biofuel is almost the same as fuel used in jets. And it supposedly produces 92% less carbon dioxide than traditional fuel.

A process known as hydrothermal liquefaction is used to make this product. The process applies high pressure and heat to convert human waste into bio-crude oil. The next step extracts kerosene from the bio-oil using fractional distillation.

Now, here’s what I see as a major issue: According to Firefly Green Fuels, the excrement of 10,000 people would be necessary to create enough jet fuel to fly from New York to London. That seems like a lot of pooping people to me. And just how does one collect the poo of 10,000 people for a flight of one passenger plane, one way?

As I think about it, I wonder when one has contributed to the poop process if a discount on a ticket is offered? And we should consider the advertising challenges. ‘Billboards across the nation would encourage citizens to ‘POOP FOR PROGRESS! Find profit in your most personal activity; sell your waste and fly, knowing you have become one with the plane!’

This is a future I’m not sure I want to see unfold. Seriously, the concept of eliminate today, fly tomorrow, leaves me remembering all the warnings I read years ago about toilet training a child too soon. This product could very well be a result of fearful attention focused on losing part of oneself as their poop is flushed away, never to be seen again.

It’s human excrement, and fueling a jet plane with it seems like a waste. That’s right! I went there! My final analysis? Waste;,to be flushed, not flown.