It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to standard 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 aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major 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 airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the project.

The most recent airline to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually motivating development has actually been the move away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green credentials.