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New plant in Germany aims to cut flying’s carbon footprint

On Oct. 4, German officials unveiled what they said is the world’s first commercial plant for making synthetic kerosene, touted as a climate-friendly fuel of the future.

Aviation currently accounts for about 2.5% of worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. While other forms of transportation are increasingly being electrified, the challenge to making large, battery-powered planes is formidable.

Experts say e-fuels can help solve the problem by replacing fossil fuels without major technical modifications to the aircraft.

“The era of burning coal, oil and natural gas is drawing to a close,” Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new plant. “At the same time, no one should have to sacrifice the dream of flying. This is why we need alternatives to conventional, climate-harming kerosene.”

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.

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.

“It’s a new paradigm, if you will,” said Falko Ueckerdt, a senior researcher and team leader at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research who is not involved with the project. “Through cheap solar, mainly, it can be possible in the future to produce e-fuels that are as cheap as fossil fuels today.”

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.