Company Develops Technology Capable of Turning Carbon Into Fuel for Airplanes Using Only Gas and Renewable Energy

The Startup Twelve Is Revolutionizing Sustainability in the Aviation Industry with Its Technology Capable of Transforming Carbon into Fuel for Airplanes.

The main impasse in fossil fuel production is the emission of CO2, a pollutant gas that worsens global warming. An American company has decided to reverse this logic with a new technology. To that end, the startup Twelve will use carbon and renewable energy  to, contrary to what is currently seen in the market, produce fuel to be used in the aviation sector.

Technology Production Will Start in 2024

Twelve is still developing a new factory that will be responsible for producing fuel for airplanes from carbon and energy, a technology called carbon transformation. In this process that uses carbon as fuel for airplanes, the pollutant is separated from water artificially and then recombined with molecules of hydrogen.

According to CEO and co-founder Nicholas Flanders, production of this technology will begin next year and the fuel can be used in already existing aircraft on the market without the need for adaptations. However, initially, the proportion of carbon-based fuel and conventional fuel in the tanks will be 50-50. 

The new factory that will transform carbon into fuel for airplanes is not a shot in the dark, as Twelve has already tested the fuel in a partnership with the United States Air Force. Even with only half a tank, the fuel can mitigate aviation emissions by 90%. In the future, new airplanes may use it for 100% of their fueling.

The supply of captured CO2 will be carried out by nearby companies and factories, such as paper producers and ethanol plants. The technology that transforms carbon into fuel for airplanes tends to be expensive, as it involves several stages, requires high temperatures, and requires a lot of electricity to break down CO2.

The Company’s New Factory Will Produce 40,000 Gallons of Fuel

According to Flanders, the company has managed to make the production of the new fuel viable by reducing the stages of the process, the temperature, and the energy level, in addition to using cheaper equipment. However, for now, this fuel will still be more expensive than the common fuel used in aviation. To speed up production and make it viable, companies like Microsoft and Alaska Airlines have partnered with the startup and plan to use the fuel in their operations.

When the unit is transforming carbon into fuel for airplanes on a large scale, the estimate is that the price will become more competitive compared to conventional fuel. The expectation is that the new unit will produce about 40,000 gallons of fuel per year, eventually scaling its production to 1 million gallons per year. This is still just a small part of what the aviation sector requires, as airlines consumed 95 billion gallons in 2019 alone; thus, Twelve’s alternative may be a viable and cleaner means than conventional fuels.

The World’s Largest Hydrogen-Powered Airplane

Alaska Airlines, mentioned above, recently delivered a Bombardier Q400 airplane, capable of carrying 76 passengers, to ZeroAvia, a company focused on hydrogen electric propulsion solutions, so it can be retrofitted with non-polluting technology, as promised a few years ago.

The company can now move forward with its plans to test flights of the world’s largest hydrogen-powered airplane ahead of schedule, due to advances in the modular engine system. ZeroAvia already holds three experimental certificates for prototype aircraft from the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the US Federal Aviation Administration.