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It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might start having a dig at business aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started 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 and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell 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 making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.

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

One actually motivating development has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some people wound up starving just to please somebody else's green qualifications.