In the Netherlands, a passenger flight was carried out for the first time in the world, whereby the aircraft was partly flown on sustainably produced synthetic kerosene. This was recently announced during an international conference on sustainable synthetic aviation fuels (SAF) in The Hague. Shell that produced the sustainable kerosene and KLM that operated the flight explained the world first during the meeting that was held at the initiative of Minister Van Nieuwenhuizen (Infrastructure and Water Management) and at which European politicians, policymakers, representatives from the business community and from the ( aviation) industry and civil society organizations participated.
The Netherlands is one of the leading countries in Europe that want to boost the development and application of sustainable aviation fuels to make aviation more sustainable. The Netherlands wants to stimulate the development and application of sustainable aviation fuels (biofuels and synthetic kerosene) so that Europe can fly entirely with sustainable fuel by 2050. To this end, the government supports various initiatives to get production and use going, and to scale it up and thereby also make it commercially interesting. An example is the construction of the first European factory for sustainable biokerosene in Delfzijl, for which SkyNRG is collaborating with KLM, Schiphol and SHV Energy.
500 liters delivered, refueled and used
During the conference it was announced that at the end of last month the first commercial flight of KLM was made with an admixture of 500 liters of sustainable synthetic kerosene. It was a passenger flight from Schiphol to Madrid. Shell produced the synthetic kerosene in its research center in Amsterdam on this scale based on CO2, water and renewable energy from the sun and wind from Dutch soil.
New initiatives and startups
During the conference, the stage was set for various new initiatives and startups. For example, the start-up Synkero announced that with Port of Amsterdam, Schiphol, KLM and SkyNRG work is underway on the realization of a commercial synthetic sustainable kerosene factory in the Amsterdam port. The project seeks to link up with sustainable initiatives in the North Sea Canal area, such as the establishment of a 100 megawatt hydrogen plant where up to 15.000 tons of green hydrogen can be produced with sustainable electricity.
Another initiative is the construction of a demonstration factory for sustainable kerosene using captured CO2 from the air as a raw material in Rotterdam. The Zenid initiative, in which Uniper, Rotterdam The Hague Airport, Climeworks, SkyNRG and Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport are participating, uses a combination of innovative technologies to promote CO2-neutral aviation with sustainable synthetic kerosene.
Several European politicians, including European Commissioner Timmermans, German traffic minister Scheuer and his French colleague Djebbari, underlined the importance of developing sustainably produced aviation fuels to reduce CO2 emissions and give aviation a good future.
Various European member states announced during the conference that they wanted to work on this. In a joint statement, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and Spain indicate that recovery from the current crisis due to the corona pandemic must go hand in hand with accelerating the sustainability of the aviation sector to achieve the climate goals the European Commission to come up with a European blending obligation. The Member States see the development of sustainable synthetic kerosene in addition to sustainable biokerosene as one of the most promising and effective ways to reduce emissions from aviation in the coming decades. KLM reports this on their website.
Photo above: KLM image bank.
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