Solar-Powered Jets Could Some Day Take Off

Sun-fueled flight is now at least theoretically possible – but solar-powered jets won’t be on the runway for some years yet.

Swiss scientists are closer to making solar-powered jets a reality.  They now know how to make jet fuel out of air, sunlight and water.

With a high temperature solar reactor fashioned from a helpful ceramic, they split carbon dioxide and water to make carbon monoxide and hydrogen, known as syngas or synthetic natural gas, with oxygen as the only exhaust.

They then handed the compressed syngas to chemists in Amsterdam who used a standard industrial process to turn the syngas into kerosene, the fuel that flies jumbo jets around the world.

Aviation is estimated to be responsible for only 2% of the emissions that drive potentially dangerous global warming.  But while wheeled traffic can function on electricity or hydrogen as fuel, only flight-quality hydrocarbon fuel refined from crude oil can deliver the engine thrust to lift continental and intercontinental commercial flights.

And the latest experiments offer for the first time the chance of a carbon-neutral high-octane aviation spirit.

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