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

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from rising oil prices and ecological legislation, the race is on to find practical options to traditional kerosene and these so far appear to boil down to different types of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the very first trials of alternative fuel were started by British aviation leader, 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 including some from made from jatropha curcas which can grow in soil thought about too bad for growing mainstream foods.

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought 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 transferred to perform research and advancement into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic specialists for the job.

The current airline to start try out 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 declared, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging development has actually been the relocation away from biofuels which complete head on with food consumers thereby avoiding a rate spiral. Not so long ago, a surge in usage of biofuels in cars and trucks triggered a spike in maize rates as US farmers diverted excessive corn to fuel processing.

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