The Netherlands made the world’s first flight on sustainable synthetic kerosene

The passengers who were waiting for flight KL1703 to Madrid last month had no idea that they were on a special flight. Until the captain picked up the microphone and told them that their KLM aircraft had 500 liters of sustainable synthetic kerosene in the tank, in addition to regular kerosene. […]. It is the first aircraft ever to fly this.

The Dutch world first was announced this morning by traffic minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, during an international digital conference in The Hague on the future of sustainable aviation fuels. At her request, Shell made green hydrogen using sustainable electricity from solar panels. CO2 was captured in Pernis and on a farm in Friesland. Clean kerosene is made from this together with water.

The minister wanted to show in practice that flying on sustainable synthetic kerosene is possible. “500 liters is of course far too little for an airplane, but it is already a lot more than in laboratory conditions”, says Van Nieuwenhuizen. “The intention is now to scale it up to the European level and make it more affordable.“

Minister van Nieuwenhuizen, together with France, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, are calling on the European Commission to come up with a mandatory ‘blending scheme’ for sustainable kerosene. In this way, airlines would have to fill an increasing proportion of the fuel tanks in their aircraft with sustainable kerosene. By 2050, aviation, like other sectors, must be completely C02 neutral.

This is an excerpt from an article originally published by NOS and translated by Jennifer Ruffalo from Netherlands News Live.