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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various 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 foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out 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 significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would as strategic specialists for the project.

The most recent airline company to start experimenting with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food customers thus avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

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