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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the task.

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

One really encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers consequently preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.