Airco, a US-based company that makes carbon technology, has gone ahead and released a hydrogen-based e-fuel production system that can be used in defence.
The Mad Fuel system happens to be a mobile, containerized platform that makes synthetic drop-in fuels from electricity, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide – CO2 at or near the point of usage.
It looks forward to making fuel more resilient by way of decentralizing production, and the US Department of War – DOW goes on to call it one of its six most significant technologies.
Airco has worked with DOW offices, including the innovation arm AFWERX, so as to create the technology.
As per Airco, its technology is feedstock-flexible, meaning it can use any renewable energy source so as to roll out synthetic jet fuel or diesel. However, there aren’t many technical details that are available yet.
It hopes that the system, which has received around $70 million from the federal government, is going to be used in fuel swarms that are controlled by artificial intelligence in order to make sure there is enough supply.
The CEO of Airco, Gregory Constantine, said that the hydrogen-based e-fuel production system could as well turn fuel logistics from a weakness into a decisive asymmetric advantage.
This announcement comes at a time when decentralized synthetic fuel production systems look to be getting more popular. It swiftly follows the German pair Ineratec and Rheinmetall, who boast of a similar system.
The availability of CO2 could as well be a problem for decentralized e-fuel systems.
Some areas may have point-source CO2 from industrial emitters, however, the amount, purity, and capacity to access it through contracts cannot always be guaranteed, especially when we talk of areas that are unstable or disputed.