Oil giants Saudi Aramco and ENI, together with United Airlines are investing a staggering $22.7 million in British startup OXCCU through their venture units to tackle the astronomical costs of eco-friendly aviation fuel.
This bold venture aims to transform the aviation industry’s carbon emissions, which currently contribute 2% to the world’s alarming climate crisis.
Led by the US-based investor Clean Energy Ventures, this significant investment aims to supercharge OXCCU’s mission to slash the exorbitant costs associated with low-carbon aviation fuel, according to a press statement.
With ambitious targets set to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the aviation sector faces a monumental challenge. OXCCU, a company spun out from the University of Oxford, is at the forefront of the race to develop sustainable alternatives to kerosene and gasoline.
OXCCU’s revolutionary fuel-making process combines captured carbon dioxide from industries and power plants with hydrogen sourced from renewable electricity.
This lies in their ingenious use of an iron-based catalyst, enabling a streamlined one-step chemical reaction. This ground-breaking approach reduces capital costs by 50% while minimising unwanted by-products, according to the statement.
“Sustainable aviation fuel is our most potent weapon in decarbonising air travel. However, we still grapple with a critical shortage,” said United Airlines Ventures President Michael Leskinen.
He noted that OXCCU’s technology holds the key to overcoming this supply obstacle by ingeniously converting CO2 into fuel—a cutting-edge solution that paves a cost-effective pathway towards United’s ambitious goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, without relying on traditional carbon offsets.
Clean Energy Ventures conducted a meticulous evaluation of numerous technologies and found OXCCU’s process to be genuinely extraordinary within the emerging sustainable aviation fuel industry.
