WILLEMSTAD - Klesch Group owner of Heide refinery in Germany and the new operator of Curacao refinery together with the university of Bremen & other scientific institutes are in the process of developing a power to jet fuel plant. This to produce green kerosene to tackle the negative environmental footprint of air travel due to its contrails & fuel emission. Contrails are those streaks of clouds formed when a plane’s warm engine exhaust meets the cold low-pressure air around the plane in the atmosphere. They trap heat radiating from the earth’s surface preventing it consequently from releasing into the atmosphere warming the air below. Few scientific research suggest that changing some of the thousands of flights a day to different altitudes could reduce contrails’ effects up to 59%, knowing that contrails don’t form in all areas of the sky.
The process for making the power-based fuel is called the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, gas to liquid polymerization technique that fractures water into oxygen and hydrogen through using electricity generated from renewable sources, as a result, 'green' kerosene is derived from water and will pull carbon dioxide out of the air during creation. This Fischer Tropsch promising technology is expected to grow very fast in the SAF market (Global Sustainable Aviation Fuel) by 2028 decarbonizing the entire sector. If successful, the process won’t just end up the rising emissions from air travel but will denude demands for crude oil.
Although this project is still in the research & development phase, it is to start to deliver first synthetic kerosene by 2023 and to supply 5% of Hamburg airport’s jet fuel with synthetic kerosene by 2024. Lufthansa, the German flag carrier has signed an agreement with the Heide refinery (Klesch Group) to produce and use this environmentally friendly kerosene, which will be made from surplus wind energy.
Synthetic fuel can be seen as the only vision to really become CO2 neutral in the near future for air travel & with Klesch Group project involvement will mean a lot for Curaçao refinery operations for its future renewable energy sector.
