It's bad enough for some prop planes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could begin having a dig at business airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to .

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to discover feasible alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to come down to different types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with limited 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 consisting of some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 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 very best 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 using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airline companies Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical experts for the project.

The newest airline to begin exploring with 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 claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which complete head on with food customers therefore avoiding a price spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in vehicles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and motorists will focus biofuel consumption on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving simply to satisfy someone else's green qualifications.