Startup that launched recaptured carbon vodka now produces jet fuel with the same technique

In 2019, the Air Company successfully launched vodka derived from recaptured carbon in an effort to reduce the amount of the harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

Today, the Brooklyn-based startup has started using the same process to make jet fuel.

Air Company’s sustainable jet fuel, which was recently tested by the US Air Force, could help the airline industry reach its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Currently, the airline industry accounts for about 3% of total global carbon emissions each year, and relies primarily on traditional fossil-based fuels that require various forms of environmental disruption to produce.

Some of the world’s biggest airlines are already adhering to the Air Company vision. The company announced last month that Jet Blue and Virgin Atlantic, as well as aircraft company Boom Supersonic, had agreed to buy millions of liters of its fuel over the next few years.

Jet Blue Ventures, the airline’s investment arm, also invested directly in the Air Company’s $30 million funding round earlier this year.

“We think about what the company does is try to solve humanity’s most difficult problems,” Gregory Constantine, co-founder and CEO of Air Company, told CNN in an interview last month. “For us, climate change is the biggest challenge we are facing as humanity to date.”

Several producers of sustainable jet fuel have sprung up in recent years, including a large Finnish producer called Neste, many of them using ingredients such as plant material and cooking oil.

But the Air Company’s production process starts by taking harmful carbon emissions out of the air.

The company first harvests carbon, primarily from industrial environments such as biofuel production facilities.

It then takes water, separates the hydrogen from the oxygen, and mixes the captured carbon with the hydrogen and a proprietary blend of other compounds, according to Air Company CTO Stafford Sheehan.

The solution is distilled, using what appears to be a larger version of, say, a whiskey distillation system. The end products are ethyl alcohol, which is used to make the company’s vodka and other products such as perfumes, as well as paraffin, which is the basis of its jet fuel.

In a way, Sheehan said, the process mimics how plants work: it absorbs carbon, and apart from the end products, the only other outlet is oxygen. And the company says its tests indicated that the planes should be able to fly using its fuel without mixing it with fossil fuels or modifying their engines.

By the time a plane flies using Air Company fuel, it will have released the same amount of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere that was captured to make the fuel, meaning the process is generally carbon neutral, he said. Sheehan.

The company uses renewable energy sources, such as solar, to power its production facilities.

The Air Company still has some work to do until its carbon-derived fuel is ready for widespread use on commercial flights. It needs more testing and it needs to increase its manufacturing footprint.

Sheehan said the company’s next production facility is already underway and will be about 100 times the size of its Brooklyn test facility, which is likely the size of a two-bedroom apartment in New York.

The company will also need to reduce the cost of its fuel, which is currently more expensive than traditional jet fuels, although the company declined to provide details on how much.

The Air Company said that “consumers will not feel the impact of this change” and added that the cost reduction will be achieved in part “through a series of government incentives made available to fuel producers generating sustainable alternatives”.

Constantine said the company is planning the first fuel test on a commercial airliner next year and expects its fuel to be used on its first commercial passenger flight by 2024.

Still, the Air Company is hopeful that its efforts could eventually disrupt the aviation industry for the better, just as it is working to do with its consumer goods.

“Aviation has been part of the objective from the beginning,” he said. “However, getting to these big industrial markets like jet fuel, which is traditionally known as the hottest industries to decarbonize, will take time. It will take a lot of money and a lot of effort.”