Exploring the opportunities of large-scale production of synthetic sustainable aviation fuel

Vattenfall and Shell have decided to pause their collaboration in the HySkies electrofuel project which focused on investigating the production of synthetic sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on a large scale in Sweden. Instead of using virgin fossil material in the production process, the synthetic SAF would be produced from fossil free electricity and recycled carbon dioxide from district heating. The synthetic SAF, also known as electrofuel, would be produced from fossil free electricity and recovered carbon dioxide. 

The ambition was to commission the new production facility sometime around 2030 near Forsmark on Sweden's east coast. The facility would be planned on a site adjacent to the Forsmark nuclear power plant since there is a grid connection with sufficient capacity to get fossil free electricity from the Swedish electricity mix.

More information about the latest status of the project can be found here

The reduction potential of aviation electrofuel

Electrofuel is categorised as a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) since the only inputs to the process of making electrofuel are fossil free electricity, water and recycled carbon dioxide (in contrast to virgin fossil feedstock). Electricity will be mainly used to make hydrogen via electrolysis which together with carbon dioxide can be converted into ethanol and next converted to aviation electrofuel.

The recycled carbon dioxide is captured from a district heating facility (instead of being released) and used for electrofuel production, which is why this is called carbon capture usage (CCU). Then when electrofuel is combusted by aircraft engines, the harnessed carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere after being utilised a second time.

The raw materials planned to be used are fossil free electricity from the Swedish electricity grid and carbon dioxide collected from Vattenfall’s combined heat and power plant in Uppsala, where approximately 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide can be recovered per year. In contrast to conventional aviation fuel production in fossil oil or natural gas refineries, fossil raw materials will remain in the soil and virtually no new fossil carbon dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere.

Today's aircraft are certified to fly on a maximum of 50% SAF, of which electrofuel is an example, and the remainder on conventional aviation fuel. While it is clear that there is a very large reduction in carbon dioxide emissions when an aircraft is powered by electrofuel (synthetic aviation fuel) compared to fossil fuel, there is currently no exact reduction percentage available.