by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:25 PM ET, Wed June 15, 2022
United and United Airlines Ventures (UAV) announced a new deal with Dimensional Energy as part of an effort for the carrier to reach its 100 percent green net zero commitment by 2050.
With United trying to reach the goal without the use of traditional carbon offsets, Dimensional Energy's technology removes the need for fossil fuels, converting carbon dioxide and water into usable ingredients for the Fischer-Tropsch process.
While facilities around the world continue to use Fischer-Tropsch to produce fossil fuels, Dimensional will be one of the first to use it to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). As part of the agreement, United will purchase at least 300 million gallons of SAF over 20 years from Dimensional. The deal cements the airline's status as an industry leader in sustainability.
"Sometimes you have to look to the past to solve new problems, and we recognize that decarbonizing air travel is going to require combining proven technologies, such as Fischer-Tropsch, with the latest advances in science and engineering," UAV President Michael Leskinen said.
"As we grow our portfolio of companies like Dimensional, we are creating opportunities to scale these early-stage technologies and achieve United's commitment carbon neutrality by 2050, without the use of traditional carbon offsets," Leskinen continued.
Dimensional's technology can run on all forms of renewable energy. At the Tucson site, they are using electricity from the Arizona grid, which gets an increasing amount of power from local solar panels. Future plants are slated to use hydro-power, wind-power and rapidly maturing concentrated solar, which utilizes heat from direct sunlight.
The announcement marks UAV's fourth SAF-related technology investment, but it's the first pathway of power-to-liquids: which creates SAF synthetically without the constraints of feedstock growth prevalent in other biofuel pathways.
Launched in 2021, UAV targets startups, upcoming technologies, and sustainability concepts that will complement United's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050
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