It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform 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 serve as tactical specialists for the job.

The most recent airline to begin try out 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 mix, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really motivating development has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a price spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.