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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly 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 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 jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, 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 perform research study and development into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the task.

The most current airline to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really motivating development has been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused 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 curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.