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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, 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 different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for foods.

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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the job.

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

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists 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 just to satisfy another person's green credentials.