It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic consultants for the task.

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

One truly encouraging advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.