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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these so far seem to come down to various types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel . It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the project.

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

One truly encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars caused 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 curcas and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.