It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.

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

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to carry out 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 experts for the job.

The most recent airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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