Sustainability and the Arrival of Synthetic Fuels

Until about 2 years ago, it was sensible to argue that automobiles ought to drop use of the internal combustion engine in favour of battery power.  However, this has changed dramatically over the past 2 years with the development of synthetic fuels, some of them bio-based and others using CO2 extracted from either the atmosphere or plants, that when combined with hydrogen, obtained from electrolysis of water using sustainable electrical power, can be used to create what has become know as Synthetic Kerosene.

Shell’s recently introduced synthetic kerosene is a good example of such a process being used to create a practical carbon-net-zero fuel for aircraft and automobiles. This is the direction that Horizon Helicopters is travelling with its Autocopter. Many other fuel companies may now follow Shell’s lead, and if not there is the now widespread availability of Sustainable Aviation Fuel or SAF, essentially a biofuel.

Figure 1 shows a diagram of the Autocopter’s fuel cycle when fuelled by Shell’s synthetic kerosene. CO2 is taken form the air, combined with hydrogen to produce synthetic kerosene, this is burnt in the engine and the exact same amount of CO2 originally taken from the air returned to the air.  Hence the property of carbon-net-zero.

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