It's bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be referred to as being powered by elastic band. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from rising oil costs and ecological legislation, the race is on to find viable options to conventional kerosene and these up until now appear to boil down to various types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British aviation 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 utilized different 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 is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

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

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation relocated to bring out research study and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would serve as tactical specialists for the project.

The most current airline company to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging advancement has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which contend head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs 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 ended up starving simply to please somebody else's green qualifications.