Air Travel and Climate: German Plant Produces First Quantities of Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Kerosene

(Atmosfair) A pilot plant in northern Germany has produced the first quantities of CO2-neutral aviation fuel on an industrial scale, using renewable electricity, water, and CO2 extracted from the air. Among the customers are two German tour operators, suggesting that air transport could become essentially carbon-neutral in the future. However, we still need to fly less.

The world’s first industrial plant for the production of electricity-based CO₂-neutral kerosene for aviation has achieved a significant milestone towards full-scale operation, producing its first five tonnes of synthetic crude kerosene. This makes the atmosfair plant the first to successfully produce this new type of aviation fuel. The plant was built and financed by the climate organisation atmosfair and its operating company Solarbelt and was inaugurated in 2021 by then Environment Minister Svenja Schulze.

The plant is intended to demonstrate that the industrial production of electricity-based synthetic kerosene is technically possible, using only renewable energies and other fully renewable resources. The process is considered the most significant method for decarbonizing a substantial portion of air traffic in the long term.

“We have shown that the process for electricity-based kerosene works and saves almost 100% of CO₂. However, the technology is not yet fully developed and still needs to overcome significant hurdles for the necessary scale-up,” says atmosfair CEO Dietrich Brockhagen.

Private individuals and companies can already book CO₂-neutral kerosene for their trips directly on the atmosfair website. Starting this autumn, Munich-based tour operators Hauser Exkursionen and Neue Wege Reisen will offer trips with a small blend of atmosfair kerosene.

“It is good and important that medium-sized travel companies lead the way in taking responsibility for their flights and customers,” says Prof. Mojib Latif, renowned German climate scientist and patron of atmosfair. “Airlines must now also take on their fair share of the risk and commit to purchasing relevant quantities. Only in this way is there a realistic chance that, in the race against time and with scarce electricity resources, at least part of air travel will become sustainable by 2040.”

So far, in efforts to become green, airlines primarily rely on small amounts of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) made from fatty plants and food waste. However, these fuels are not available in sufficient quantities and come with environmental issues, such as the “food or fuel” dilemma. The production costs of electricity-based synthetic kerosene are considerably higher than those of conventional SAFs. Investments in this technology are required today to reduce costs and scale up the markets of tomorrow.

“To scale up electricity-based kerosene, we now need demand from the airlines themselves. Given the current initial small quantities, the airlines could easily buy up the entire production and thus take responsibility for developing the technology and reducing costs themselves,” says Brockhagen. “In their own best interest, the airlines must now get involved if they want to maintain a viable business model. Relying solely on government funding is not enough.”

At the same time, according to atmosfair, the aviation industry should stop suggesting that climate-friendly flying is feasible at today’s levels, as green electricity-based kerosene is very energy-intensive. In Werlte, atmosfair must use more than five times the amount of energy from wind and solar power to produce the kerosene compared to the energy content of the kerosene itself. Even with future optimisation, the current global capacity of renewable energies would need to be doubled just to supply today’s global air traffic with electricity-based kerosene. Therefore, only a fraction of today’s air traffic can be covered in the next few decades. That is why flying less remains the most important way to preserve the climate.

The pioneering plant in Werlte uses renewable electricity to first produce hydrogen from water and CO₂ extracted from the air. These components are then synthesized into hydrocarbons. Overall, the crude oil from the plant achieves a 96% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to fossil crude oil. Further refining of the crude is conducted in a refinery.

The kerosene produced can be allocated to customers using the Book&Claim procedure. Both the plant and the CO₂ savings are certified by TÜV-Süd. The atmosfair standard for electricity-based kerosene also mandates that all feedstock materials are entirely renewable and free from other environmental and social burdens.

The crude kerosene produced is considered “CO₂-neutral” because during combustion in aircraft engines, only as much CO₂ is emitted as was previously removed from the earth’s atmosphere during its production. However, achieving a 100% CO₂ savings compared to fossil kerosene isn’t fully realized due to the need for transport and refining processes of the electricity-based crude.

The plant in Werlte is currently operating in a simplified mode. It is projected to produce approximately 300 tonnes of electricity-based crude oil per year starting around 2026. This output is significantly lower compared to the demand for kerosene from German airlines alone, which consumed about 10 million tonnes in 2023.

In 2024, TÜV-Süd certified the plant and its CO₂ savings according to the atmosfair fairfuel standard. Solarbelt gGmbH has been authorized to sell the kerosene using the Book&Claim procedure, similar to the sale of green electricity to households by feeding power into the grid.

Starting autumn 2024, Munich-based travel companies Hauser Exkursionen and Neue Wege Reisen will incorporate 0.1% of electricity-based kerosene from Werlte into their guests’ flights. By 2026, Germany plans to mandate a 0.5% blending of power-to-liquid kerosene into fossil-based kerosene, although this mandatory blending quota might be overturned by the EU. If the EU enforces it, a 1% blending mandate of electricity-based kerosene would only apply from 2030 onwards across the EU.

atmosfair also offers the new green kerosene through the Book&Claim process on its website for business travel of approximately 60 corporate customers from various sectors.

The atmosfair plant in Emsland relies almost exclusively on German technology. The manufacturer of the most important core component is the Karlsruhe-based company Ineratec.

Following the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in November 2023, the federal government reduced public funding for the promotion of electricity-based paraffin and green hydrogen from around EUR 2 billion to approximately EUR 100 million. READ MORE