Honeywell announces tech to turn hydrogen and CO2 into lower-carbon aviation fuel

Honeywell International Inc (HON.O) announced on Wednesday a new technology to produce lower-carbon aviation fuel from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide captured from industry, which can help cut greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, one of the hardest sectors to electrify and decarbonize. Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is typically made using biomass-based feedstocks such as soybean oil and used cooking oil. Honeywell's new technology would combine green hydrogen - produced in electrolyzers from renewable energy and water - and carbon dioxide siphoned off industrial smokestacks to create lower-carbon methanol, which is then turned into fuels including SAF. Honeywell said its process can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 88% compared with traditional petroleum-based jet fuel. President Joe Biden's administration has targeted 3b gallons (11.4b liters) of SAF production per year in the US by 2030 as part of its efforts to fight climate change. "It's exciting because CO2 is available everywhere so you have a universally available feedstock," Lucian Boldea, Honeywell's president of performance materials and technologies, told Reuters in an interview. SAF is typically two to four times costlier than petroleum-based jet fuel. "Today (SAF) requires incentives and the regulations to drive it, and then it will require at some point passengers' willingness to pay some," Boldea said. Honeywell is one of the world's biggest suppliers of aircraft avionics and also supplies small jet engines known as Auxiliary Power Units, used to run electrical and other systems. Its fuel technology announcement adds to a growing number of projects focused around expanding feedstocks for SAF.<br/>