It’s bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel usage in 2008. This was rapidly 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 bad for growing mainstream foods items.

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 cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 relocated to perform research and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the job.

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

One actually motivating advancement has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a mixed blessing indeed if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green credentials.