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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to conventional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

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

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

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

The latest airline to begin exploring with 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 claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists 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 wound up starving just to please another person's green qualifications.