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

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

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with limited biofuel use in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used various blends of routine 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 household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs mentioned Jatropha curcas as one of the finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and pests, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

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

The most recent airline company to begin exploring with brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has performed internal US flights using a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly motivating advancement has been the relocation far from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers consequently preventing a cost spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles caused a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

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