It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the job.

The most current airline company to begin try out brand-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 really motivating advancement has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.