It's bad enough for some prop airplanes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha 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 jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research study and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic specialists for the job.

The newest airline to begin explore new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a mixed blessing certainly if some individuals wound up to please somebody else's green credentials.