It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover viable alternatives to traditional kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to carry out research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic consultants for the task.

The most recent airline company to start experimenting with 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 mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers consequently preventing a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing undoubtedly if some people wound up starving simply to satisfy somebody else's green credentials.