It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be described 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 aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing 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 various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including 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 family Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and pests, 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 study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the project.

The current airline company to start explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted 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 actually motivating advancement has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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