It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to come 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 started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of routine 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 approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the task.

The current airline company to begin try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.