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

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the 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 rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream 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 best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved 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 serve as strategic specialists for the project.

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

One really motivating development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive 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 blended blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.