Defense Department signs $65 million contract with startup that makes jet fuel from CO2

[Cal Jeffrey]

In context: 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.

"These contracts allow [us] to focus on the growth of technology and the development of technology," Constantine told USA Today. "The core of our technology is really centered around carbon utilization."

Unfortunately, the company's lofty goals are still far into the future. While the DoD contract will help Air Company refine its process and build a large-scale production plant, it will take more than one company to produce enough SAF to feed the entire aviation industry.
Another complication is that most regulatory agencies maintain specific limitations on using SAF.

"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.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97766-defense-department-signs-65-million-contract-startup-makes.html

 

[psycros]

"The company cannot yet produce at the scale needed to impact global CO2 levels."

No kidding. No human activity has any chance of that.

 

[ZackL04]

SAF fuel also not acceptable everywhere

Why is that? Does it not work properly?

 

[someOtherGuy]

"It then uses water electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas"

Pretty sure there will be a negative net energy balance in this process (including the consumption): basically you have to spend more energy on creating this "fuel" than the energy the fuel stores.

 

[yRaz]

"It then uses water electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas"

Pretty sure there will be a negative net energy balance in this process (including the consumption): basically you have to spend more energy on creating this "fuel" than the energy the fuel stores.

well we produce so much solar and wind that we literally have to shut off some powerplants so this would atleast give us something to do with that power. Frankly, I see making petroleum products out of excess renewables a better alternative to, or atleast something to work alongside, battery storage. If we use carbon capture to produce these fuels using renewables it's essentially carbon neutral. I've been saying this for years and with economies of scale we could see the cost come down significantly over the next 10 years. That sounds like a long time but 10 years will go by whether we want it to or not.

Electric vehicles are fine for consumers but electrification really isn't a great alternative to diesel for trucking and it'll never work aircrafts

 

[Puiu]

"The company cannot yet produce at the scale needed to impact global CO2 levels."

No kidding. No human activity has any chance of that.

There are a few, one being eating less beef

But the biggest one would be nuclear power plants. Until renewable energy power sources improve to acceptable (maybe 2040 years?), we could use more nuclear power instead of fossils. After which they can be shut down.

 

[Inthenstus]

"It then uses water electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas"

Pretty sure there will be a negative net energy balance in this process (including the consumption): basically you have to spend more energy on creating this "fuel" than the energy the fuel stores.

My thought exactly.. would have to come from nuclear or “green” energy. It was oddky ommited from the article.

 

[Bobbydpue]

"It then uses water electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas"

Pretty sure there will be a negative net energy balance in this process (including the consumption): basically you have to spend more energy on creating this "fuel" than the energy the fuel stores.

No one said it didn't. The entire point of liquid fuels is concentration of potential energy in a small area with little weight. Compare the amount of energy a person can get out of gasoline in the same weight and volume of an electric car battery.

 

[Bobbydpue]

well we produce so much solar and wind that we literally have to shut off some powerplants so this would atleast give us something to do with that power. Frankly, I see making petroleum products out of excess renewables a better alternative to, or atleast something to work alongside, battery storage. If we use carbon capture to produce these fuels using renewables it's essentially carbon neutral. I've been saying this for years and with economies of scale we could see the cost come down significantly over the next 10 years. That sounds like a long time but 10 years will go by whether we want it to or not.

Electric vehicles are fine for consumers but electrification really isn't a great alternative to diesel for trucking and it'll never work aircrafts

Who is shutting off power plants due to having too much renewable energy? That seems highly unlikely.

 

[Tams80]

I'm not sure a mock up image of the Boom jet is the best choice for the header. They don't even have a complete airframe yet, and their order of the fuel is going to be utter peanuts compared to others if it turns out to be effective.

 

[yRaz]

Who is shutting off power plants due to having too much renewable energy? That seems highly unlikely.

I'm having difficulty finding sources because of how politicized this subject is but to put it simply, most of the renewables are generated during the day and peak power usage is at night, this is the reason we need massive battery packs, to even out the grid. We charge them during the day during peak hours and discharge them at night when the energy is needed, or atleast that's how it is suppose to work. These battery packs have a major logistical issue, we simply can't make enough of them at any cost.

The battery packs are very effective, Tesla has shown that with their megawatt scale packs in Australia, but we simply don't have the manufacturing capacity to make them alongside battery packs for electric cars.

Then comes the second problem, we don't have a "smart grid." If we did we could send the power all over the US and make better use of it. However, we have an "energy on demand" type grid, we can't produce more electricity than we need or else we start frying things and if we produce too little we start having rolling blackouts.

Nuclear cannot be shutoff and turned on quickly but coal and natural gas plants can. The problem there is that they can never be completely shut off and that's where the problem with renewables start. We can shut off a certain percentage of solar panels or windmills and we have to shut those off because we need the fossil fuel powerplants at night to pick up demand. Fossil fuel plants take a couple days to go from zero to producing energy and nuclear can take weeks. After a nuclear reactor is shut off it has to reman off for atleast 3 days. This is what happened in chernobyl, the shut the reactors off and almost immediately tried to turn them back on

So instead of a solar farm running at 40-50% capacity we run it at 100% capacity using carbon capture to manufacture carbon neutral fuels. As demand goes up and down on the grid we can adjust how much power we dedicate to carbon capture.

It's a simplistic solution and one that shouldn't be necessary but it's better than wasting renewable energy capacity because we don't have enough megawatt scale battery packs or a smart grid.

 

[yannus]

The same leaders who lead us to the wall and spend their lives lying to us promote a narrative. Most people repeat this narrative. Something is going wrong and has nothing to do with CO2.

 

[VoidTheWarranty]

There are a few, one being eating less beef

But the biggest one would be nuclear power plants. Until renewable energy power sources improve to acceptable (maybe 2040 years?), we could use more nuclear power instead of fossils. After which they can be shut down.

Methane from cows is a bunch of bs put out by the petroleum industry instead of paying to seal up their hundreds of thousands of wells spewing tonnes of methane constantly. Cause why should oil companies be responsible when it means less profits.

Right up there with "clean coal".

I unfortunately work in this garbage industry.

 

[Puiu]

Methane from cows is a bunch of bs put out by the petroleum industry instead of paying to seal up their hundreds of thousands of wells spewing tonnes of methane constantly. Cause why should oil companies be responsible when it means less profits.

Right up there with "clean coal".

I unfortunately work in this garbage industry.

What are you talking about dude? There are many independent studies done and this is something known for decades.

And it's obviously not on the same level as fossils, nobody said that. I obviously threw it out more as a joke than a real solution (we need more than a 1-2% reduction).

 

[ScottSoapbox]

well we produce so much solar and wind that we literally have to shut off some powerplants

LOL, What!?! Who told you that??

Solar and wind are a minuscule part of our power generation.

 

[yRaz]

LOL, What!?! Who told you that??

Solar and wind are a minuscule part of our power generation.

20% is not miniscule and the only thing holding it back from being a bigger part is a smart grid or an energy storage system

 

[ScottSoapbox]

20% is not miniscule and the only thing holding it back from being a bigger part is a smart grid or an energy storage system

According to this government website wind is 9% and solar less than 3%.

Not sure how that is so much power we have to shut down powerplants due to our abundance of power as you stated.

And smart grids and batteries would not change anything. The issue with renewables is that the rivers, sun, and wind are not always where you need power. Transmission distance takes energy.

(source: eia .gov/energyexplained /electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php)

 

[yRaz]

According to this government website wind is 9% and solar less than 3%.

Not sure how that is so much power we have to shut down powerplants due to our abundance of power as you stated.

And smart grids and batteries would not change anything. The issue with renewables is that the rivers, sun, and wind are not always where you need power. Transmission distance takes energy.

(source: eia .gov/energyexplained /electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php)

The reason those numbers are as low as they are is that we not fully utilizing them. Wind and solar my account for a total of 12%, but there are other sources of renewable energy.

Diving a little deeper into this I found this. It talks about how renewables account for about ~13% energy consumption but accounts for ~20% of energy generation. So to put it simply, about a 1/3rd of renewable energy generation capacity goes unused.

 

[Uncle Al]

Every little bit helps ...... well, maybe .....

 

[Bobbydpue]

The reason those numbers are as low as they are is that we not fully utilizing them. Wind and solar my account for a total of 12%, but there are other sources of renewable energy.

Diving a little deeper into this I found this. It talks about how renewables account for about ~13% energy consumption but accounts for ~20% of energy generation. So to put it simply, about a 1/3rd of renewable energy generation capacity goes unused.

No it's not 20% of "energy generation" "it's 19.8% of total utility-scale electricity generation". Until you define what "U.S. primary energy consumption" and "utility-scale electricity generation" is you are just guessing at what those numbers actually mean.

"Utility-scale electricity generation is electricity generation from power plants with at least one megawatt (or 1,000 kilowatts) of total electricity generating capacity."

"Primary energy consumption measures the total energy demand of a country."

That's why the numbers are different because the power generated isn't from all sources while the power consumed is for all sources (connected to the power grid). All power generated by sources producing less than 1 megawatt isn't counted.

 

[Bobbydpue]

20% is not miniscule and the only thing holding it back from being a bigger part is a smart grid or an energy storage system

Until we are producing over 100% of our power needs power storage isn't going to do anything.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I'm having difficulty finding sources because of how politicized this subject is but to put it simply, most of the renewables are generated during the day and peak power usage is at night, this is the reason we need massive battery packs, to even out the grid. We charge them during the day during peak hours and discharge them at night when the energy is needed, or atleast that's how it is suppose to work. These battery packs have a major logistical issue, we simply can't make enough of them at any cost.

The battery packs are very effective, Tesla has shown that with their megawatt scale packs in Australia, but we simply don't have the manufacturing capacity to make them alongside battery packs for electric cars.

Then comes the second problem, we don't have a "smart grid." If we did we could send the power all over the US and make better use of it. However, we have an "energy on demand" type grid, we can't produce more electricity than we need or else we start frying things and if we produce too little we start having rolling blackouts.

Nuclear cannot be shutoff and turned on quickly but coal and natural gas plants can. The problem there is that they can never be completely shut off and that's where the problem with renewables start. We can shut off a certain percentage of solar panels or windmills and we have to shut those off because we need the fossil fuel powerplants at night to pick up demand. Fossil fuel plants take a couple days to go from zero to producing energy and nuclear can take weeks. After a nuclear reactor is shut off it has to reman off for atleast 3 days. This is what happened in chernobyl, the shut the reactors off and almost immediately tried to turn them back on

So instead of a solar farm running at 40-50% capacity we run it at 100% capacity using carbon capture to manufacture carbon neutral fuels. As demand goes up and down on the grid we can adjust how much power we dedicate to carbon capture.

It's a simplistic solution and one that shouldn't be necessary but it's better than wasting renewable energy capacity because we don't have enough megawatt scale battery packs or a smart grid.

You've made an opinion based on how you feel rather than objective data. "peak power usage is at night". Just because power peaks in the evening doesn't mean power usage is only 20% if that during the day. The power usage even at lower usage times is still significantly higher than solar and wind power production. I looked it up and the lowest power consumption during off peak hours is still 210 million kilowatts. However, I can't find the average daily power production of renewables only the 20% number. Doing all the math to average out the daily electricity consumption, it's around 310 million kilowatts average and 20% of that would be 62 million kilowatts. So at the most renewable power accounts for nearly 1/3rd of the power required during the lowest power consumption during the day.

 

[ron baer]

When the worlds CO2 levels are the lowest in recorded history why are you all still buying that CO2 is what is needed to be reduced/removed

 

[Sir Sparkles]

When the worlds CO2 levels are the lowest in recorded history why are you all still buying that CO2 is what is needed to be reduced/removed

I think you're a little confused mate, it's the exact opposite
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere

I think it's a great innovation. Every time I see people doing stuff like this it gives me a flicker of hope that we are not all doomed for famine in the too near future.