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It's bad enough for some to be explained as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics could start having a dig at commercial aircraft flying on whatever from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil rates and ecological legislation, the race is on to find feasible options to conventional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to various kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, 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 minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foods items.

Jatropha 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 finest prospects for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and bugs, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial significant Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to bring out research study 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 project.

The current airline to start explore brand-new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has 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 harmful emissions by 10%.

One truly encouraging advancement has been the move away from biofuels which compete head on with food customers thereby avoiding a cost spiral. Not so long earlier, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airlines and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a blended blessing certainly if some individuals wound up starving simply to please somebody else's green credentials.