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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of 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 jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to research study and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the job.

The current airline to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing a blend 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 advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.