It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to different kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with restricted biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized various blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too bad for foods.

jatropha curcas is a genus of approximately 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 finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research and development into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as strategic experts for the task.

The newest airline to start try out brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air 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 declared, can cut hazardous emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers therefore preventing a rate spiral. Not so long back, a surge in use of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and motorists will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing indeed if some people wound up starving simply to please another person's green qualifications.