It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at business airplane flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical experts for the task.

The most recent airline to start try out new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently avoiding a price spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in use of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed true blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.