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

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical options to standard kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

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

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects 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 aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research study and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.

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

One really motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving just to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.