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

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha 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 finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical experts for the job.

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

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.