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

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use 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 which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

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

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical experts for the project.

The current airline to start explore new fuels is the Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend 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 been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers consequently preventing a cost spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined true blessing indeed if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green credentials.