It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and legislation, the race is on to find practical options to standard kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

jatropha curcas is a genus of around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic consultants for the project.

The latest airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.