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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, 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 perform research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as for the task.

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

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.