Plucking aircraft fuel from thin air

MOST PEOPLEETH who think about such things agree that replacing fossil fuels with renewable electricity, either directly or indirectly, is the best way to decarbonise industry, transport and the heating and cooling of buildings. But there are some holdout areas where this is hard. . Aviation is another, because batteries are too heavy and hydrogen (which could be made using renewable electricity) too bulky to do the job easily. Hydrocarbon aviation fuels are thus likely to be around for a while.But such fuels need not be fossil. They might be synthesised from the CO exhaust of various industrial processes. And a study just published in , by Aldo Steinfeld of Zurich, a technological university in Switzerland, and his colleagues, shows how they might literally be plucked from thin air.