It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation 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 utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, 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 moved to bring out research 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 strategic specialists for the project.

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

One truly encouraging has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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