As journalists have learned over and over with alternative fuels, accurately measuring environmental impact is tough, and reducing it even tougher. A few outlets have carried that lesson forward since Virgin’s test flight. At Scientific American, David Biello did a good job of this, as did Sam Jones and Dan Milmo at The Guardian, who wrote a piece titled, “Branson’s coconut airways-but jet is on a flight to nowhere, say critics,” that raised concerns about the feasibility of procuring enough biofuel (babassu- or algae-based) without disrupting agricultural or fresh-water systems. And a few outlets, like Wired’s blog, Autopia, approached the test flight from an explicitly skeptical perspective, using the headline “Green Breakthrough or Greenwash?” The Australian called it a “stunt.”

Good science coverage demands more of this type of research before government, industry, and the public get their hopes up or, worse still, misplace those hopes as they seem to have done with other biofuels. We know some of the details about Virgin’s particular blend, but we haven’t had the big-picture analysis of the chances for actually cutting our copious airplane pollution. Branson says his test flight is progress; critics say it’s marketing. The press needs to get to the bottom of it.

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