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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel 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 utilized different 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 foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, 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 perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.

The current airline company to begin exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really motivating development has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers therefore preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.