It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel industry under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, 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 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 curcas which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs cited Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical consultants for the project.

The current airline company to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has 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 actually motivating advancement has been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers consequently preventing a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended true blessing undoubtedly if some individuals ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green .