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

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

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the task.

The latest airline to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, 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 customers consequently preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much 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 mixed true blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.