Washington Plant Turns CO2 Into Jet Fuel at Scale

A sprawling new plant in Washington State just opened with a remarkable mission: turn carbon dioxide into jet fuel that airlines can use today.

The facility, called AirPlant One, belongs to startup Twelve. After a decade of development, the company is now producing sustainable aviation fuel at commercial scale for the first time.

Here's how it works. CO2 captured from an ethanol plant gets fed into a system that converts it into syngas using renewable electricity. That syngas becomes synthetic crude, which gets refined into jet fuel that's chemically identical to what planes use now.

CEO Nicolas Flanders puts it simply: "You have a CO2 molecule going in at one end of the plant, and it is getting transformed into on-spec jet fuel on the other side."

Current aircraft need to blend this new fuel with conventional jet fuel because older rubber seals were designed for petroleum-based aromatics. The FAA allows up to a 50% blend right now. Newer planes with updated seals will eventually run on 100% CO2-based fuel without any modifications.

The fuel produces up to 90% lower emissions than traditional jet fuel. Production just ramped up, so emissions are temporarily higher while Twelve fine-tunes the process. But the first batches are already being delivered to airlines for commercial flights.

Alaska Airlines, a key investor and partner, plans to start using the fuel in its own flights once Twelve hits its carbon emission targets. The airline already buys sustainable fuel made from waste cooking oil and other fats, but there's only so much of that available.

"At a certain point, you run out of those fats, oils and greases," says Ryan Spies, Alaska's sustainability director. The airline wanted more options for reducing its carbon footprint.

The Ripple Effect

This breakthrough solves a critical puzzle in aviation's path to sustainability. Airlines need massive amounts of fuel, far more than waste oil alone can provide. By turning captured pollution into usable fuel, Twelve creates an essentially unlimited supply that gets cleaner as renewable energy expands.

The technology proves that the CO2 already in our atmosphere isn't just a problem to manage but a resource to transform.