It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated 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 curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas 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 best prospects for future biodiesel . It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

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

The most recent airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using 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 been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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