It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options 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 air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas 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 very best candidates for future biodiesel . It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the project.

The most recent airline company to start exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using 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 advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists 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 just to please someone else's green qualifications.