It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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

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

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

The current airline company to start exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.