It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market 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 come down to different kinds 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 limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different 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 foodstuffs.

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 mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated 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 function as strategic specialists for the project.

The latest airline company to start exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people ended up starving just to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.