It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started 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 routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, 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 moved to bring out research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the job.

The current airline company to start explore 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 mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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