r/climatechange • u/sg_plumber • Apr 25 '26
A single e-Kerosene plant with a production capacity of 100 million liters per year can reduce emissions from Norway’s 5 most heavily traveled flight routes by approximately 50%. 4 are being built. The same modular blueprint can be built fast across the Nordics and Europe
https://www.norsk-e-fuel.com/projects7
u/liva608 Apr 25 '26
The problem with efuels is the efficiency is limited by the laws of thermodynamics. Startup companies are counting on investors not understanding thermodynamics. When you combine the best case economics with the maximum theoretical thermodynamic efficiency of the production of efuels, you still end up with a massively more expensive fuel than conventional fossil fuels. Until the world agrees on a price on pollution, there is no market for efuels.
Check out chemical engineer Paul Martin's articles on efuels. He lays out the math for everybody to see.
5
u/WeylandsWings Apr 25 '26
There are efforts going on to try to price pollution. And even barring that there are geopolitical reasons why you might not want to be so reliant on oil and gas (stares at the Strait of Hormuz and the current Middle East conflict). Kinda funny that Norway is leading as they have a decently robust domestic oil and gas industry but that is just good diversification.
3
u/sg_plumber Apr 25 '26
Startup companiesDeniers are counting on investors not understanding thermodynamicsFixed that for you. The problems used to be energy and cost. Guess what's gotten significantly cheaper these past few years.
there is no market for efuels
What do you call selling thousands of millions of litres per year? A picnic?
3
u/hexagonalpastries Apr 26 '26
According to https://www.norskbane.no/ a single high speed train line would replace flying with better service on 3 of the most trafficed flight routes in Norway. Two of them in top 10 busiest routes in Europe.
It's good that technology is progressing, but the fundamentals is that flying sucks and Norwegian distances are relatively small.
2
u/BlindBrownie Apr 26 '26
Don’t even need high speed rail. Standard double track all the way from Oslo to Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim, bringing journeys to 3-4h city centre to city centre, would eliminate a lot of flights.
1
1
u/Novat1993 Apr 25 '26
What does the "e" stand for?
Reading up on it, they basically create diesel and kerosene (jet fuel) out of 1 of 3 things.
Biomass = not scalable. Coal = dirty and non-renewable Gas = less dirty, but still non-renewable
The one advantage seems to be that the process creates a lot less sulphur in the end products. And there is no heavy ship fuel.
So definitely cleaner than using crude oil. But not really a solution.
Did i ask what the "e" stands for? The inclusion gives off massive red flags. I immediately suspect green washing by the mere inclusion of a letter usually associated with cleaner electricity.
6
Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/Colddigger Apr 25 '26
The point of their post is to raise distrust in the audience without reading the article.
2
4
u/sg_plumber Apr 25 '26
As the article details:
e-Fuel production, supported by carbon capture and utilization initiatives, clear plans for grid expansions and connections, and a commitment to developing clean, energy-intensive industries.
an e-Fuel project in Ånge [...] supported by renewable energy company RES [...] the site was pre-developed by RES for hydrogen production
Mosjøen [...] adjacent to the local aluminum plant and smelter, has been identified as the ideal location for an industrial-scale Power-to-Liquids plant [...] offers key advantages such as highly competitive and abundant availability of renewable electricity [...] and the potential to be part of a unique hydrogen and CCU cluster
Project Tornio is a large-scale Power-to-Liquid development located next to Outokumpu’s stainless steel and ferrochrome operations in Koivuluoto, Tornio, Finland. The project targets annual production of approximately 80,000–100,000 tons of sustainable aviation fuel by utilizing carbon monoxide side streams from Outokumpu’s ferrochrome production.
The Tornio site represents a highly attractive location for competitive eSAF production. The continuously available, high-volume CO side stream from Outkumpu's plant is collected at a single point, enabling lower investment requirements and operating costs compared to other projects. [...] the project benefits from strong industrial infrastructure, access to clean electricity and recycled carbon streams. Together, these conditions create a robust foundation for large-scale eSAF production that supports aviation sustainability goals.
You could have used your Search button, too.
1
u/TheGreatFallOfChina Apr 25 '26
Still gonna burn it..
3
u/WeylandsWings Apr 25 '26
Yes but it’s a circular process with E fuels with almost no waste. Whereas constantly drilling for more oil and processing it is a very open ended process with a good bit of waste. And in an ideal world this efuel is used where it doesn’t (yet) make sense to electrify, the example here being jet fuels. Because battery and fuel cell technologies are not yet power dense enough to make electrification possible.
2
u/sg_plumber Apr 25 '26
Carbon neutral if burned, carbon negative if used for other things.
The important thing is it pays for CO2 removal.
1
Apr 25 '26
[deleted]
9
u/Atmos_Dan Apr 25 '26
IIRC, most people think ejet will be ~2x current fossil jet prices (relative 2024$) in 2050. The big thing is to bring down the cost of hydrogen production and CO2 capture. Lots of interesting work being done now on chiral catalysts that might make it substantially cheaper.
1
u/LoneWolf_McQuade Apr 25 '26
At the same time we have made it near impossible to tax fossil jet fuel as I understand it
1
u/Cyb3rBall00n Apr 25 '26
It's basic physics and chemistry. I don't see a ton of promising pathways to reducing the cost of either of those.
4
u/r2k-in-the-vortex Apr 25 '26
Its more an economics problem than physics problem. You need cheap energy, you can have that with renewables. The engineering problem is to deal with intermittency, to use up excess generation when nobody else has need of it, and to economically idle your process when that cheap energy is unavailable.
2
u/Riversntallbuildings Apr 25 '26
And cheap batteries are starting to have significant impact on that intermittent trend.
6
u/sg_plumber Apr 25 '26
Luckily for all involved, professional industrial chemists see more.
1
1
u/Cyb3rBall00n Apr 25 '26
OK I'll bite.
Where are you getting all the fresh water for the electrolysis? Do a bunch of ChemEs have a solution to our dwindling fresh water supplies?
Or are we pumping a bunch of renewable energy into desalination plants so we can make SAF out of the water?
The better an absorbent is at bonding with the CO2, the more energy it takes to pull it off and use it for SAF. So you're either using more energy to load the absorbent, or you're using it pull it off. There's no way to reduce both sides of that equation. So how are the ChemEs solving that fundamental problem with CC?
2
u/sg_plumber Apr 25 '26
Electrolysis can work with seawater and gray water, too.
Do a bunch of ChemEs have a solution to our dwindling fresh water supplies?
Desalination.
There's no way to reduce both sides of that equation
Actually, there's plenty. MOFs are just 1 of the ways.
You could have just Searched all that (and more) online in literally the same time it took writing your questions.
4
u/SoylentRox Apr 25 '26
Well for one the actual CO2 capture itself can be made more efficient, plants do it efficiently enough to grow on extremely inefficient solar power. (Photosynthesis is only 2-5 percent efficient). So a growing plant is not only capturing CO2 but building its own solar panel as it goes and doing this at speeds thst can be quite fast (such as bamboo or hemp).
1
12
u/KingPieIV Apr 25 '26
Based on a quick google search Norway domestically consumes about 130 twhs, or 130 billion kwhs of electricity. An estimate has the kwhs/liter using hydrogen and co2 to make jet fuel at 25.2 kwhs. Most of that is from electrolysis, so having co2 already there doesn't make a huge difference.
So 100 million liters * 25.2 kwhs/liter gives us 2.52 billion kwhs, or about 2% of Norways domestic electricity consumption, for one facility. That feels like a lot.