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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha 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 jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

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

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

One actually motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.