SWISS plans partial shift towards solar fuel

Swiss International Air Linesplans to start using small amounts of solar fuel in its planes as of next year, the company’s CEO has said. Dieter Vranckx told the SonntagsZeitungExternal link newspaper that the airline’s goal was to reach a target of 11% sustainably-sourced fuel by 2030. This is part of the company’s goal of cutting CO2 emissions in half by 2030, and becoming climate-neutral by 2050. Amounts of solar fuel used would remain small for the near future, however. Due to limited production capacity and high prices, “it’s not realistic to progress more quickly”, Vranckx said. The SWISS CEO also warned that in the coming years, travel could become more expensive: not just due to current inflation, but also due to the cost to airlines of transitioning to more climate-friendly models. The solar fuel is produced by Synhelion, a spin-off company from the Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich. Their technology, first announced in 2019, involves producing liquid fuels such as kerosene or methanol directly from sunlight and air, via a multi-stage thermochemical process.<br/>