It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin 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 rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to carry out research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the project.

The most recent airline to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a mix 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 advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

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