German officials on Monday unveiled what they said is the world’s first commercial plant for making synthetic kerosene, touted as a climate-friendly fuel of the future. The Associated Press reports: The facility in Werlte, near Germany’s northwestern border with the Netherlands, will use water and electricity from four nearby wind farms to produce hydrogen. In a century-old process, the hydrogen is combined with carbon dioxide to make crude oil, which can then be refined into jet fuel. Burning that synthetic kerosene releases only as much CO2 into the atmosphere as was previously removed to produce the fuel, making it “carbon neutral.”
The amount of fuel that the plant can produce beginning early next year is modest: just eight barrels a day, or about 336 gallons of jet fuel. That would be enough to fill up one small passenger plane every three weeks. By comparison, total fuel consumption of commercial airlines worldwide reached 95 billion gallons in 2019, before the pandemic hit the travel industry, according to the International Air Transport Association, or IATA. But Atmosfair, a German non-profit group behind the project, says its purpose is to show that the process is technologically feasible and — once it is scaled up and with sufficient demand — economically viable.
Initially the price of synthetic kerosene produced in Werlte will be far higher than that of regular jet fuel, though Atmosfair won’t divulge how much it will be charging its first customer, the German airline Lufthansa. However Atmosfair’s chief executive, Dietrich Brockhagen, says a price of 5 euros ($5.80) per liter (0.26 gallons) is possible. That’s still several times what kerosene currently costs, but Atsmofair is banking on carbon taxes driving up the price of fossil fuels, making his product more competitive. Additionally, authorities at the national and European level are putting in place quotas for the amount of e-fuel that airlines will have to use in future. That will create demand, making it more attractive to invest in bigger and better plants. Ueckerdt said 5 euros per liter is feasible by 2030, when the European Union’s executive may require airlines to meet 0.7% of their kerosene needs with e-fuels. Under current plans, that would rise to 28% by 2050.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.