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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was rapidly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized 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 around 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household 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 transferred to perform research study and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the task.

The newest airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging development has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a rise 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 blended blessing certainly if some individuals ended up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.