It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.

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

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 jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects 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 major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the job.

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

One actually motivating development has been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise 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, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving just to please someone else's green credentials.