It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start 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 prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad 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 very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the job.

The current airline to start exploring with 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.