The New York Air Company is promising to start the world's first commercial supply of carbon neutral aviation fuel for jet engines based on carbon dioxide capture from the air in 2024. The most important moment of new development will be the full compatibility of green fuel with existing propulsion systems.
Air Company has been involved in CO2 capture and use since 2017; in the years since then, vodka, disinfectant and perfume have become by-products of experimental production, but the main work of the company remains the massive production of jet fuel based on captured carbon dioxide. Air Company's first "green" aviation fuel was tested during a U.S. Air Force drone flight in August of this year.
A successful test flight allowed Air Company to enter into a pre-contract for the supply of 95 million litres of new Air Company fuel "AIRMADE SAF" for five years by JetBlue. A similar contract was also entered into with Virgin Atlantic. Air Company began to design factory production plants to support these orders. The first batches of fuel for testing by air carriers are expected to be shipped in 2023 and commercial supplies and flights are expected to be shipped in 2024.
It should be said that the first phase of the production of "green" aviation fuel will use "concentration" carbon dioxide captured in a production process, so cheaply cheaper than extracting highly diluted CO2 from the atmosphere, although Air Company ultimately expects to create commercially profitable plants to extract carbon dioxide from the air.
Captured CO2 is placed in a hydrogen reactor where chemical reactions turn it into finished aviation fuel in one step. Hydrogen, in turn, receives electrolysis from renewable electricity. Finally, CO2 comes from an ethanol plant to produce fuel. Ethanol is derived from plants. Aviation fuels are not cheap but 100 per cent carbon neutral at all stages of raw materials production.
Following the governments of the world's advanced countries, air carriers have set themselves the target of zero emissions by 2050, but 20% of this volume will be fake, representing compensation and the purchase of quotas. The use of CO2 jet fuel will help to reduce the percentage of fakes, as it is also a trade-off. Even by 2050, this green fuel is unlikely to be cheaper than fossil fuels, which means that airlines will pay a lot more for it.