Swiss will be the first airline to fly with solar kerosene
In 2023, Swiss will be the world's first airline to use synfuels for its aircraft. The tanks will be filled with solar fuel from the ETH spin-off Synhelion.
This is what it's all about
.The aviation industry must become more climate-friendly.
.Synthetic fuels - synfuels - are considered a promising substitute for kerosene.
.Swiss will be the first airline in the world to use solar kerosene from the ETH spin-off Synhelion.
.The first aircraft are scheduled to take off with the new fuel in 2023.
Whereas people once boarded an airplane at any time without hesitation to jet off to faraway places or to visit a city, many people now carry an unpleasant piece of luggage with them: a guilty conscience. After all, airplanes are among the biggest CO2 emitters in traffic.
The airline industry knows this, too. If it does not want to be seen as a climate killer and lose customers in the face of the threat of climate change, aircraft must become climate-friendly. The magic word at the moment is synfuels - synthetically produced fuels that are obtained exclusively from renewable sources. Synfuels work like kerosene: no new engines are needed to get the planes off the ground - but they do so in a CO2-neutral way.
Half of aviation fuel to be synthetic by 2030
Swiss will now be the world's first airline to send planes into the skies with solar kerosene from the ETH spin-off Synhelion - the first planes should be on the road as early as 2023. To this end, Swiss and the Lufthansa Group have entered into a partnership with Synhelion.
To this end, the company will build the world's first facility for the industrial production of the solar fuel in Jülich (D) this year. The partnership further includes support from Swiss and the Lufthansa Group in the development of Synhelion's commercial fuel plant in Spain. The aim is to replace half of Switzerland's kerosene needs with the environmentally friendly fuel by 2030.
The solar fuel is particularly environmentally friendly: It is produced using CO2 and the heat of the sun alone (see also here). The sun's rays are concentrated by a mirror field, collected in a collector and brought to a temperature of over 1500 degrees. This is what is needed to produce solar kerosene.
Other airlines likely to follow
Unlike other synthetic fuels, solar kerosene does not compete with other needs. Biofuels, for example, are made from biomass and compete with the food industry. And the electricity generated for e-fuels from wind and hydropower can be used elsewhere.
Although Swiss is the first customer for Synhelion's solar kerosene, there is no exclusivity agreement. The synthetic fuel made from solar power is meeting with great interest throughout the industry, the company writes. So other airlines are likely to follow Swiss' example soon. And with that, perhaps the guilty conscience will soon be able to stay at home as extra luggage.
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