Amazon says it wants to hit the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Reaching that goal will require emissions cuts across the company\u2019s operations, but one of the biggest challenges will be long-distance transportation\u2014it\u2019s possible to switch to electric delivery vans now for short trips, but cargo ships and large jets can\u2019t yet feasibly run on electricity.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s Climate Pledge Fund\u2014which will put $2 billion in climate technologies that could help the company meet its emissions goals\u2014is now one of the investors in a startup taking a different approach to reduce emissions. The startup, called Infinium, uses renewable electricity to break down water molecules to make green hydrogen. Then it adds the hydrogen to waste CO2 inside a custom reactor that makes synthetic gas. That gas can be converted into an \u201celectrofuel\u201d that can be used in existing trucks, planes, or ships.<\/p>\n
The technology allows for \u201cimmediate decarbonization of transportation using today\u2019s vehicles and today\u2019s infrastructure,\u201d says Infinium CEO Robert Schuetzle, who also founded Greyrock Energy, a company that created some of the technology that the startup is now using. \u201cThese are drop-in fuels that are similar or the same as are used in transportation today, except instead of using oil as a feedstock, we use anthropogenic CO2 and renewable power as our only input,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
An airplane flying with the fuel will still emit CO2, but because the fuel was made with captured CO2, the process is net-zero, meaning it doesn\u2019t add new gases to the atmosphere. To begin with, Infinium is buying waste CO2 from facilities like ethanol production plants. But it eventually hopes to work with direct air capture plants that can pull CO2 from the atmosphere. \u201cWhen direct air capture is commercialized and it hits the cost targets for CO2 into our plant, we see that as a fantastic feedstock source, which really allows us to be anywhere on the globe and not co-located next to some of these CO2 sources that we\u2019re working with today,\u201d Schuetzle says.<\/p>\n
The cost of the fuel is a challenge; right now, it\u2019s around twice as expensive as regular fuel. But the company plans for costs to decline as renewable energy prices fall and other parts of the process become more affordable. Policy can help, such as California\u2019s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which gives financial incentives for fuel with a lower carbon footprint.<\/p>\n
The company is working on early pilots now and expects to have its first commercial volumes of fuel on the market within several years. By the time that some large companies are aiming for net-zero emissions\u2014like Ikea, which is aiming to be \u201cclimate positive\u201d by 2030\u2014the fuel should be widely available.
\nAbout the author
\nAdele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world’s largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley, and contributed to the second edition of the bestselling book “Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon says it wants to hit the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Reaching that goal will require emissions cuts across the company\u2019s operations, but one of the biggest challenges will be long-distance transportation\u2014it\u2019s possible to switch to electric delivery vans now for short trips, but cargo ships and large jets can\u2019t yet feasibly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[10744,12366,10743],"supplier":[9175,16095,18087,18088],"class_list":["post-84372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-carboncapture","tag-fuels","tag-useco2","supplier-amazon","supplier-fast-company","supplier-greyrock-energy","supplier-infinium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84372"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=84372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}