It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad 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 cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 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 study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the task.

The newest airline company to begin try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed 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 actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to please another person's green qualifications.