It's bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various types of biofuel.

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

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

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

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

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which compete head on with food customers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage 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, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some people wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.