Climeworks to supply CO2 for Norwegian plant

The European consortium Norsk e-Fuel hopes to build Europe’s first commercial plant to manufacture synthetic fuels in Norway. Four partners are involved: Sunfire GmbH from Germany, Paul Wurth SA, the parent company of Norsk Vind, Valinor, and Climeworks, a start-up from Zurich.

According to a press release, the new production plant is to manufacture synthetic fuels from water and ambient CO2. First, CO2 is filtered from the air for this, which is made possible due to Climeworks’ technology. The CO2 is then converted into syngas together with the water. The syngas created can be used for fuel production. The partners are using renewable energy for production, which is abundant in Norway.

According to the information provided, the plant is expected to be completed by 2023 with an annual production capacity of up to 10 million liters. Production is to be further developed later on. The aim is to produce a total of 100 million liters of green fuel by 2026. The press release states that up to 250,000 metric tons of CO2 could be saved per year if industries such as the aviation sector used the fuel.

Lars Helge Helvig, Founder of Valinor and Chairman of Norsk Vind, states: “To put this in perspective, only one industrial scale plant will already provide enough blended renewable fuel for the top five domestic aviation routes in Norway combined (Oslo-Trondheim, Oslo- Bergen, Oslo-Stavanger, Oslo-Tromso and Oslo-Bodo).” He goes on to add that this would decrease the CO2 emissions from these routes by about 50%.