It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at business aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation industry under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover viable options to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different kinds 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 limited biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil considered 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very 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, significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research study and advancement into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as tactical consultants for the task.

The current airline to begin explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has conducted internal US flights utilizing 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 encouraging development has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thus avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long back, a rise in use of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended true blessing indeed if some individuals ended up starving just to please somebody else's green credentials.