It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha is a genus of around 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 insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the task.

The most recent airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to please someone else's green qualifications.