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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to traditional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil 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 began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly 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 bad for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs jatropha curcas as one of the very best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major 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 act as tactical specialists for the task.

The current airline to begin exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thus avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in vehicles 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 usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.