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It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics could start 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 increasing oil rates and environmental legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use 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 curcas which can grow in soil considered too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, 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 development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the task.

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

One really motivating development has actually been the relocation far from biofuels which compete head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green qualifications.