On the site of a former sugar beet mill in eastern Washington, carbon transformation company Twelve has broken ground on a new plant that promises to convert carbon dioxide into jet fuel that could one day power some of Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737s. “I am honoured to kick off this celebration of a new chapter in aviation, and an important step in the fight against climate change,” Nicholas Flanders, co-founder and chief executive of Twelve, said during a 11 July ground-breaking celebration. “The plant built at this site will supply the world’s first regular commercial service on a fuel made from CO2.” California Bay Area-headquartered Twelve says fuel production at the “commercial-scale” facility will begin in mid-2024, and that it will eventually supply Alaska with a steady diet of so-called “E-Jet” fuel produced at the Moses Lake plant. Built on 5.7ha (14 acres), the plant will initially be capable of producing roughly 151,417 litres (40,000gal) of SAF annually, with plans to increase capacity late in 2024. Alaska, Microsoft and Shopify will be the plant’s first customers, Twelve says. For co-founders Etosha Cave, Kendra Kuhl and Flanders, early construction of the plant marks a hard-earned transition to deploying and scaling Twelve’s technology. “When we decided to pursue the vision of carbon transformation company almost a decade ago, we knew the work would be challenging, but we knew that if we got the technology to work that it would have a tremendous potential for impact,” Flanders says. The company says carbon transformation has potential to “address up to 10% of total global emissions and up to 50% of difficult-to-decarbonise industrial emissions”. <br/>
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Moroccan state-owned airlines Royal Air Maroc (RAM) plans to quadruple its fleet to 200 aircraft by 2037 to meet increasing demand, the government said on Tuesday. To that end, a deal was signed by Morocco’s prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch, and RAM chief Hamid Addou to increase the participation of the government in the airline’s capital, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. Details on the state’s new contribution to RAM’s capital were not disclosed. Morocco aims to attract 17.5 million tourists by 2026, up from 11 million last year, according to the tourism ministry. In 2019 Morocco had 13 million visitors. Last year, the sector’s revenue more than doubled compared with 2021 to 91 billion dirhams, exceeding 2019 levels.<br/>