Air Force has already successfully tested and approved the sustainable aviation fuel:
As more companies focus on lowering their own carbon emissions, one startup is looking to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and create sustainable aviation fuel. It already has a small-scale working process and says that if it and other manufacturers scale up production, it could "mitigate" at least 10 percent of carbon emissions.
A startup specializing in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) signed a $65 million contract with the US Department of Defense to create jet fuel out of thin air. The contract will provide a startup called Air Company funds to advance research and development of a system that can extract CO2 from the air and convert it into fuel-grade alcohols and paraffin.
Air Company already has a process of converting CO2 to jet fuel and published a white paper on the procedure. The company claims to have eliminated a step in the nearly 100-year-old Fischer-Tropsch process. It involves creating, harvesting, and storing CO2 from industrial corn fermentation. It then uses water electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas (H2) and oxygen (O2).
The O2 is released into the atmosphere, and the H2 feeds into a reactor with the captured CO2 and a catalyst. The chemical reaction produces ethanol, methanol, water, and paraffin. Distillation separates these components for use in other products, including vodka, perfume, hand sanitizer, and SAF.
The company cannot yet produce at the scale needed to impact global CO2 levels. However, CEO Gregory Constantine says that if Air Company and others can build to scale and all fuel-dependant industries switch to SAF, it could mitigate over 10 percent of carbon emissions.
[...] "With current legislation and regulation, there are blend limits that we have to adhere to," said Constantine. "The fuel we create has the components not to be blended. We are hopeful that over the course of the next several years, those blend limits will increase and that regulations will eventually allow the use of 100 percent SAF."
Currently, aviation fuel mixtures can only contain less than 50 percent SAF. However, Air Company partnered with the Air Force to test fly a 100-percent SAF, which proved successful. Dutch airline KLM also trialed a pure SAF with its engine manufacturer, concluding it was safe to burn.
Air Company has already contracted to supply three airlines with SAF --Boom, JetBlue, and Virgin Atlantic. Boom agreed to buy five million gallons annually for an unspecified contract term to fuel it's supersonic Overture jet. JetBlue signed a five-year contract to purchase 25 million gallons, and Virgin promised to pick up 100 million gallons over 10 years.
(Score: 2, Funny) by DannyB on Monday March 06, @07:22PM (4 children)
If you ever were to get into a war, it might be good to have multiple ways of sourcing fuel.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday March 06, @07:47PM (3 children)
At first I was hopeful they had something that could perhaps be installed on an aircraft carrier to use atmospheric CO2 and reactor power to produce fuel on site. Turns out it's just made from corn. Still a step forward from fossil sources, but not as impressive.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday March 06, @08:12PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday March 07, @11:07AM (1 child)
Chemistry says you need Hydrogen as well. So splitting sea water, for example.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday March 07, @03:19PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 06, @08:41PM (5 children)
Not a peep about how much it would actually cost to produce. The contract is just for R&D.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06, @09:12PM (4 children)
> ...much it would actually cost to produce...
Cost in money...and also the required energy input and GHG produced. The input energy & GHG includes buying & burning the diesel used to grow the corn...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday March 06, @10:09PM (2 children)
> The input energy & GHG includes buying & burning the diesel used to grow the corn...
What if they use the bio diesel they're making from growing the corn?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07, @02:03AM (1 child)
If the process is like the current ethanol fuel (~10% added to motor gasoline in USA), I have a feeling that:
> What if they use the bio diesel they're making from growing the corn?
...won't be enough to raise the corn next year.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Tuesday March 07, @04:31AM
Why not?
Seriously, why not? This isn't a closed system, you can't discount the energy input from the sun. If 'growing crops' yielded less energy than the fuels needed to power the machinery to seed and harvest them, agriculture would have collapsed three generations after it got started, way back in the mists of time.
- D
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday March 07, @03:22PM