It's bad enough for some prop planes to be referred to as being powered by . Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas is a genus of approximately 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 drought and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out 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 job.

The latest airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out 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 encouraging advancement has been the relocation far 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 triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.