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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the job.

The current airline company to begin explore 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 mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.