It’s bad enough for some prop aircrafts to be described as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics might begin having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to liquefied algae.

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

Not surprisingly, 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 restricted 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 including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha 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 mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to perform research and advancement into the use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic consultants for the task.

The current airline company to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually conducted internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mix, it is claimed, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One really motivating advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in cars caused a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

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