It's bad enough for some to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started 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 various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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 mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to carry out research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the project.

The current airline company to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out 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 hazardous emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks 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 consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.