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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to numerous types 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 usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

jatropha curcas 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 cited 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 aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the task.

The current airline company to begin try out 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 mix, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating development has been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green qualifications.