GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
The Science of Sustainable Aviation, with Sophie Zienkiewicz
In this episode we talk to Sophie Zinkevich, who has a refreshingly practical approach to one of climate action's most challenging puzzles: how do we keep flying without destroying the planet? As co-founder of Carbon Neutral Fuels, this chemist-turned-entrepreneur is pioneering sustainable aviation fuel that could transform how we think about air travel emissions.
The power-to-liquid technology Sophie's company is developing combines carbon dioxide captured directly from the air with water and renewable electricity to create jet fuel that's chemically identical to conventional options but without the net carbon footprint.
During our fascinating conversation, Sophie breaks down complex chemical processes with clarity and enthusiasm, explaining how her company's journey began at COP26 and has rapidly progressed to selecting a site for their first production facility. The road ahead isn't without obstacles – economic challenges remain the primary hurdle for power-to-liquid fuels, with production costs currently higher than conventional jet fuel and significant capital investment required for facilities. Yet Sophie's optimism is contagious as she shares how dropping renewable energy prices and creative applications of the technology could soon make sustainable aviation fuel economically viable at scale.
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Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode we're going to talk to Sophie Zinkevich, a dynamic clean tech entrepreneur. Sophie is co-founder of Carbon Neutral Fuels, a clean tech startup dedicated to decarbonizing aviation. Wow, a very big target through carbon capture and utilization and without the use of biofuels.
Speaker 3:And Sophie is a chemist by training, passionate advocate for climate action, a part of the Better Business Network and on a mission to have a positive impact on people and planets. So, Sophie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
Speaker 4:Thank you, that was a lovely intro as well Appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I'm glad we weren't too wide of the mark. So I know you've listened to a couple of the previous episodes so you know that we like to start with a bit of sort of backstory. Now, your tech startup was pretty much born at COP26 in Glasgow. I think that's absolutely right. But it'd be lovely for you to go back a little bit further for us I'm not saying as a toddler, but a little bit further back and tell us about your personal journey to becoming a green entrepreneur.
Speaker 4:Yes, I would say COP26 was certainly a turning point, but I'd always been interested in science. I guess I'd always gravitated towards the maths and the science area of school, even on break times. Linear science could be. In that it was. It was perceivably a very much a right or a wrong answer. But actually there's a whole host of grey within that and I think I was always curious to try and unpick. Okay, well, are what we're being taught? Is that true, is that accurate? And, uh, maybe what's my role within that?
Speaker 3:fascinating, not true? Grey shades of grey. Wow, there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2:Well, damla over to you did you hear she said cop 26, and then did you think that, oh my god, we're old it was a while ago, right?
Speaker 2:uh, I'm passing that, so let's let's start with human beings flying around in little metal tubes. I think that's amazing. Still, aviation is one of those areas of carbon emissions which has always been seen as A difficult to neutralize and B hotly debated, particularly where it comes to issues like airport expansion and blah blah particularly where it comes to issues like airport expansion and blah blah. So it looks like you have a potential solution to tell us all about CNF and the innovation platform you've developed to bring sustainable aviation fuels to the market. How so?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a big question, isn't it? So, yes, heading back to COP26, then I was really fortunate to be part of the Net Zero News nuclear team and we were campa to be part of the net zero needs nuclear team and we were campaigning on behalf of low carbon electricity and I met my co-founder, alistair, at that conference and we got together and we thought, gosh, there's an awful lot of people here saying an awful lot of interesting things across a whole range of industries, and that's kind of where we left it actually. And then fast forward a couple of months and we met back up. Alistair had watched a YouTube video which was a curious start for a business to be formed actually, and the idea, I guess, was born from wanting to be part of that solution. So I agree with a lot of that question actually, that it is a hot topic and it is hard to decarbonise.
Speaker 4:I didn't know anything about aviation before we started the business and so it was really throwing ourselves into that world actually and learning that aviation is such a at least in the UK where I live at the forefront of our minds, in that you look up to the sky, you're probably going to see a plane passing by at some point in your day and actually, relatively, the emissions from the aviation sector are between 2% and 4% of global emissions.
Speaker 4:So, whilst it touches our everyday life, and sometimes actually that doesn't necessarily have to be you're flying off to Greece for your two-week break, it it can be. I've ordered something on Amazon and I'm expecting it to be delivered tomorrow. How we sometimes we have to take responsibility for how our products get to us, or it could be hey, I really want to meet up with my team and go to this conference. Let's get there. So I think, when we talk about the hot topics in aviation, it's not necessarily what we think of immediately which is going on holiday. It's not necessarily what we think of immediately which is going on holiday, it's the whole broader way that we live our lives and how that impacts upon the planet.
Speaker 3:Goodness me, I know I do think there's also. There's also. Well, I could get into it loads If I'm not going to get distracted because I want to talk about technology pathways. But there is a kind of totemic power in the symbolism of flights amongst the green movement in particular isn't there and and and I think everybody perhaps doesn't really bother to think through in such a methodological way that you clearly have as to what, the, what, the, what, the um pathology of flying is for humankind. You know what does, what does it look like and how much is it intertwined with our everyday lives?
Speaker 4:isn't it? Yes, it really is. We might want to talk about this later, but I really strongly believe that we have the technologies capable of decarbonising, and so, from my point of view as a chemist and as very much in that engineering world, yes, there are advances to be made and optimisations to be improved upon, but actually we have that technology. It now comes down to a funding and a carrot versus stick, however. Which way you want to fall on the incentive fence, yeah, but I really feel like that technology is there, it's just how do we deploy it?
Speaker 3:So let's talk tech, then let's do that. So I'm sure that many people have thought that, and I'm one of them. Actually, I totally thought that biofuels or batteries were going to be the answer to zero carbon air travel, but there are other technologies out there and various technology pathways that are being explored, and is yours the one that's going to deliver the real solution for us globally? Do you think?
Speaker 4:Gosh, I feel I'm on an investor call now.
Speaker 3:Sorry, yes, I know'm on an investor call now. Sorry, yes, I know, but I had to ask obviously.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you're right, there are. There are several technology pathways. Electrification is one. We personally believe that that works very well for short-term flights, in the sense that batteries are very heavy. If you were flying to America, for instance, you wouldn't want to be pursuing that because your actual weight of the plane, the sense that batteries are very heavy If you were flying to America, for instance, you wouldn't want to be pursuing that because your actual weight of the plane, the energy that it takes to get it off the ground, is going to be far greater than any energy saving that you would make.
Speaker 4:And also, when we think about the resources and the minerals that are used in creating those batteries, the life cycle emissions aren't necessarily as positive as they could be, and hydrogen, at the other end of the spectrum, represents an emerging opportunity for people when we talk about that globalisation, but in terms of, again, we think about the fact that planes, the lifetime of a plane engine is upwards of 25 years. That's an awful lot of time and if you're having to retrofit those engines that have only been bought five years ago, actually carbon emission, life cycle emission wise, not totally sustainable. So I think hydrogen has a role to play in the next 30 years. Not necessarily now, but having said that, we need to have the development now and we need to be incubating that technology. But where carbon neutral fuels come in is we're a power to liquid provider, and what that means is we take low carbon electrons, we take carbon dioxide as a feedstock and water as a feedstock and we apply a current through it, removing an oxygen atom. That leaves you with this thing called syngas, which is hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
Speaker 4:You then pass that through a fischer-trott reactor, creating this waxy kind of substance, and then that then goes into a hydrocracker, which is where you say, okay, I'm going to tune this for aviation. There's no reason I say that not as an engineer working on it, but there's no reason why you couldn't tune that for marine diesel, for instance. So we feel like we've got a really strong technology offering in that it's a multiple industry piece. The quality of the carbon dioxide we use is really strong. We're incorporating direct air capture, which, if you haven't come across that before, it's super exciting in that it's essentially a big shipping container. It's got some fans in the top. They suck in the atmosphere and remove that carbon dioxide. Or we use biogenic CO2, which is from sustainable feedstocks like paper pulp, for instance, so technology-wise super simple. It's the economics that make this pathway currently challenging.
Speaker 2:Well, super simple indeed, steve, is it super?
Speaker 3:simple to you. I'm not thinking that sounded simple, that sounded really not simple.
Speaker 2:I just listened to an episode from Star Wars or Dune or something like that.
Speaker 3:Okay, Was there a hydrocracker in there?
Speaker 2:Something like that. Okay, so, just in simple terms, you carbon capture from the air and then use it as a starting point for your fuel. That is the very basics of it, and you explained perfectly, actually, how it works. But I want to ask you about the economics of it. How scalable is this technology and what is the obstacle to make it really work economic wise? Because we also know that in our current position in the world, we are again back to fossil fuels. A lot Drill, baby drill era started with Trump again. So is it just we used to make things work with fossil fuels and it is hard to change that habit, or are there some more obstacles that should be overthrown?
Speaker 4:Yes. So on the scalable question, the power to liquid process, as it's in the name, is driven a lot by the availability and the price of green electrons. So if you're in a green, electron-rich area that has a lot of wind, it has a lot of solar, has a lot of nuclear or hydro, even then the economics of the PTL process make a lot of sense because your costs are kept quite low. So in that sense it's super scalable. If you're in an area that is that has higher electricity prices, like the uk for instance, it's. It is more challenging, it's not insurmountable, but it certainly does make, uh, other regions more competitive in some ways. And then, just on the other technology side, a lot of the technology that CNF is working with is super established, has been around for many decades, and so in terms of actually saying, okay, we've got these core components, how are we going to make that into a big facility? And how are we going to keep growing that? Make that into a big facility? And how are we going to keep growing that the processes are there? So I think the scalable question is actually a relatively easy one to solve, assuming the infrastructure is in place. And then the obstacles there's always obstacles. Wouldn't it be great if this was super easy to do? I think the biggest one I would say is that it's an obstacle and an opportunity.
Speaker 4:I think the biggest one I would say is that it's an obstacle and an opportunity. So there are currently no power to liquid projects that are up and running in the world. There are a couple that are further down the line and that are soon to be up and running, but currently that technology hasn't been proven out. And that represents an opportunity in the sense that this is super exciting. There's loads of buzz around it, but it does make it challenging when you're trying to raise finance on these big projects because they're not cheap. They are comparable with refineries in terms of cost. So it takes a lot for investors and by investors I mean large banks, infrastructure funds, people like that and it does take a lot for them to jump and say, hey, do you know what we are going to put our faith in this technology? So that's where I see CNF's role in really convincing and having really science-led, a science-led approach to de-risking those projects.
Speaker 3:So that was an excellent answer, savia. I've got one tiny little follow-up, actually, which is in terms of use cases for you and I know you talked about. You know, with adjustments it could be looking at the marine sector, which has many of the same carbon issues as aviation, doesn't it? But it also sounds like when you talk about the sort of you know, how expensive are your green electrons? Is there a scenario where your fuels are also a solution to intermittency of large-scale renewables and potentially even a storage scenario?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If we take the UK, for instance, we are all working towards a decarbonised grid by 2030. That's the plan. Whether or not we get there is a debate for another day, but at some point within the next 10 years we will be on a decarbonised grid and that should therefore bring the price of those electrons down, and I should say as well. Well, so we make sustainable aviation fuel as our primary product, but we also make this thing called green naphtha, and green naphtha is a heavy kind of diesel. You'd use it in things, um, like heavy equipment, like construction equipment and things like that. You could also use it in the plastics industry. So when we're thinking about intermediates, it could be tuned for other uses. Whether the economics of that make sense is to be determined, I would say.
Speaker 3:Brilliant. So what I did want to ask, though, is just a quick one, so pulling back to humans flying around and the unavoidability of it very often you know we have to get somewhere. You can't get over land. It's really tricky. Now there are some who campaign strongly on the climate crisis, who make a stand and decided to avoid flights completely. The climate scientist, kevin Anderson, for example, springs to mind. What's your take, sophie, on the wider debate around reducing or eliminating flying, whilst we know that they do contribute so much to the climate crisis?
Speaker 4:our stance is do what you can with what you have when you can. So, for instance, we were at conference in amsterdam last week. I live in manchester. We got the train to that conference. It would have been so much easier and so much quicker to get a plane.
Speaker 4:But actually we had the and cheaper, but we had the resources to take that lower form of um carbon emitting transport. So we therefore chose to do it and actually it was great because we had a big old team meeting on the train and it was marvelous. So, even though we're really strong advocates of the aviation industry, actually it's not right in every single scenario. So that's the approach that I would say, as a business, we take to it.
Speaker 4:As I said earlier, my personal belief is that we have these technologies that are capable of helping us on our decarbonize decarbonization journey and, as people with a platform and a voice, we should be doing all we can to make sure that there's a breadth of those technologies available because, as we say, not everyone, not every technology is applicable in every scenario. So I try to minimize my flight time as much as I can because I have the means to do that, but as a business, that's not always the most logical or the most reasonable solution. So, yeah, I appreciate it's a really hard problem, but I think, as long as you do your best and you sometimes take a bit of a hit to make the right decision, that's what you, that's all you can do wait, are you sure that you really really have chosen the right field of work?
Speaker 2:because it seems to me that you can convince me to anything.
Speaker 4:I'm so pleased you're a convert. This is great.
Speaker 2:So bigger picture technology and decarbonization. Given that we're already past 1.5 degrees and that carbon emissions are still very stubbornly on the rise, do we have to look urgently at tech innovation as being our silver bullet for net zero, and are there some technologies you feel particularly excited by?
Speaker 4:Yes, I am super excited by the role of e-methanol actually in these projects.
Speaker 4:We were talking about storage earlier.
Speaker 4:If you imagine e-methanol and the production of that, it's actually a fairly energy light if that's a phrase I can coin energy light industry to do and essentially what you do is you create SAF at the end of it, but you do it in a slightly different way in that you create this e-methanol intermediary and, if you imagine, you create a big storage tank full of e-methanol.
Speaker 4:You can then run that almost as a battery, dialing up and dialing down when the renewables are more intermittent. And I think what I'm excited about in that sense is the fact that we get the opportunity to be really creative with how we use these technologies and the same with creating carbon economies. There's a bit of a debate on in the biomass world at the moment in terms of what certificates you can claim and what subsidies might be ending world of biomass, but actually for us as uh users of co2, that's super exciting because then all of a sudden there are these huge aggregators that can now pop up and, yeah, I just think it's really cool the creativity that can come from the next stage of this climate challenge it's very.
Speaker 3:I get excited about it. My fave technology pathway is a 32 year vegan. I don't do any animal nastiness is lab grown meat. I think it's so interesting. I think that because, if you look at the global footprint of meat and dairy production is just extraordinary and the potential Also, I think potential not just in terms of direct emissions being reduced because we're farming fewer animals, but if you liberate that much land, imagine what you could do. Because one thing I feel is always a little bit unfair on biofuels and biomass as areas of innovation is they're they're always seen as seen as somehow stealing land away from production of food and, um, that always seems absolutely bonkers to me, because nobody actually asked in the first place whether we're producing the right food or not.
Speaker 4:um, that's, yeah, that's so true in our world as well. Um, the the rules around additionality which is what you're saying about whether those land, that land use, could have been put to other uses is certainly rife, and it comes down to how you then classify your end product as well.
Speaker 4:Actually, um, but in terms of whether we're eating the right food, I think there's also opportunities in the insect space interesting yeah, so well, I have a dog and I felt like it was a real privilege having a dog actually, because he is called ernest and he's wonderful and his diet is predominantly meat actually, and so he has. We buy him insect food because the carbon footprint of that is significantly less, and I am now a vegetarian because he has my meat quota and that's how I've sort of rationalized in my head.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's like you say it's do what you can with what you have when you can. And I really wanted a dog and that was the choice that I chose to make. So, um, I mean, yeah, if he could eat lab-grown meat as well, that would be, that would be grand. He'd have all of the diets.
Speaker 3:I know, can you imagine? And he could have loads of good doggy nutrients chucked in it as well. It'd be perfect. So back on carbon neutral fuels. Sophie. Tell us what's in store over the next year or so and you know what's next in your entrepreneurial adventure.
Speaker 4:Well, I have to say, I'm just so excited about what's next. I feel like, as a team, we've made such such progress over this past year. We have just chosen a site for our first facility, which is really exciting. We've got a grid connection lined up. We're thinking about how we actually get the product from where we are to where we're going to be. Our team's growing. We're probably going to do a fundraise we just did a crowdfund actually, which was just awesome to bring people in on that, invite them into what we're creating and so I'm particularly excited about all of those things, about all of those things. And then, from a more personal point of view, I love that Alistair and I get to create a business that we really believe in and we really enjoy giving our time to, and I take it as a huge responsibility whenever anyone gives us any of their time, and so I'm just excited to keep that going.
Speaker 2:Wow, sophie, thank you so much for bringing all this excitement and creativity and also listening to you. A lot of good feelings and good vibes are pouring into this episode and thank you so much. Thank you, this has been great fun. So our final question our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So what object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:the thing that always makes me smile without fail, is the fact that I think nature is truly inspirational in how it persists in every form. We actually have some blue tits that are nesting just outside the back garden, at the back door, and the fact that you can pop out there in the morning with your slippers on and a cup of tea and just watch some nature is um. I love it and I will never take that for granted that's beautiful.
Speaker 3:I love it to bits. We're very excited our house martins have come back so brilliant I'm quite excited about that. They're swooping around outside like crazy little things.
Speaker 4:Oh, jolly good, you have to keep us updated.
Speaker 3:I know I might start a house mart in Cam, and so it's very cool. The only thing is they're quite poopy, so there's a lot of don't put anything underneath the little nest that they have in the house, but anyway, let's not we're going to merge into a podcast about birds, which would be mad. Um, it's been brilliant talking to you about sustainable aviation fuel. Um, sophie, really really interesting, and I think we need to do more chats about technology, because I've found this really bloody exciting and interesting. Damla, thank you.
Speaker 2:Time to close, so thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And make sure you listen to future episodes where we're talking to more amazing people about how we can all work together to create a more sustainable future. So, Sophie Damla, see you soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Bye, good Guys, bye.
