It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly 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 considered too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas 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 candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, 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 transferred to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical experts for the job.

The current airline to start try out 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 mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging development has been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green .