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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the project.

The current airline to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs 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 and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.