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

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted 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 curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.

The current airline to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists 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 ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.