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It's bad enough for some propeller planes to be explained as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever 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 standard kerosene and these up until now appear to come down to different kinds of biofuel.

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

jatropha curcas 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 pointed out Jatropha jatropha curcas as one of the best prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds containing 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, aeronautical significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to perform research and development into making use of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as tactical consultants for the job.

The current airline to begin exploring with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually performed internal US flights using a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

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

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person's green qualifications.