It concerned a passenger flight from Schiphol to Madrid. Shell produced the synthetic kerosene in its research center in Amsterdam on the basis of CO2, water and renewable energy from the sun and wind from Dutch soil.
This was announced during an international conference on sustainable synthetic aviation fuels (SAF) in The Hague, which was held at the initiative of Minister Van Nieuwenhuizen (Infrastructure and Water Management) and in which European politicians, policymakers, representatives from the business community, the (aviation) industry and civil society organizations took part.
New initiatives
The Netherlands wants Europe to fly entirely with sustainable aviation fuels (biofuels and synthetic kerosene) by 2050. The government supports various initiatives to get production and use going, to scale up and to 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.
There are more initiatives. For example, the start-up Synkero announced that it is working with Port of Amsterdam, Schiphol, KLM and SkyNRG on the realization of a commercial synthetic sustainable kerosene factory in the port of Amsterdam. The project seeks connection with sustainable initiatives in the North Sea Canal area, such as the establishment of a 100MW hydrogen factory, where up to 15,000 tons of green hydrogen can be produced with renewable 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 collaborating, uses a combination of innovative technologies to promote CO2-neutral aviation with sustainable synthetic kerosene.
Blending obligation
In a joint statement, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and Spain call on the European Commission to come up with a European blending obligation for SAF. They see the development of synthetic kerosene and biokerosene as promising and effective ways to reduce aviation emissions.
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