Dieter Vranckx told the SonntagsZeitungExternal linknewspaper that the airline’s goal was to reach a target of 11% sustainably-sourced fuel by 2030. This is part of the company’s goal of cutting CO2 emissions in half by 2030, and becoming climate-neutral by 2050.
Amounts of solar fuel used would remain small for the near future, however. Due to limited production capacity and high prices, “it’s not realistic to progress more quickly”, Vranckx said. The SWISS CEO also warned that in the coming years, travel could become more expensive: not just due to current inflation, but also due to the cost to airlines of transitioning to more climate-friendly models.
Extracting fuel from thin air
The solar fuel is produced by Synhelion, a spin-off company from the Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich. Their technology, first announced in 2019, involves producing liquid fuels such as kerosene or methanol directly from sunlight and air, via a multi-stage thermochemical process (see article below).
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How sustainable fuels created from thin air could solve the energy crisis
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Swiss scientists have built a mini solar refinery that produces synthetic fuel from just sunlight and air. The technology is now being scaled up.
Presenting the technology as a global first, the Synhelion scientists also claim their solar panels can produce synthetic liquid fuels that release only as much CO2 in combustion as was previously extracted from the air for production.
The Lufthansa group, of which SWISS is a part, entered a partnership with Synhelion already in 2020.
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