It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

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

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use 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 thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, 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 relocated to carry out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical specialists for the task.

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

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles 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 and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.