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I think the implied benefit is that the hydrocarbons could be synthetic. Why they're mentioning that is a bit suspect though. Basically they should be saying "y

by tinco 4y ago

I think the implied benefit is that the hydrocarbons could be synthetic. Why they're mentioning that is a bit suspect though. Basically they should be saying "you know those hydrocarbons that are 100 times more expensive than regular fuel? We can now use those for flying jets". It would be a lot less appealing article then. The way I see it there's only two ways we could have sustainable flying. Either using 100% hydrogen, or using some future battery breakthrough. Synthetic fuels are cool, but in my opinion we should be storing captured CO2 in the ground, not releasing it in the air again.

WalterBright 4y ago
Synthetic fuels, if I recall correctly, cost about 5x more than refined oil, which is why we pump oil instead of making synthetics. As you say, there isn't going to be any magic solution for jet aircraft. It's an energy/weight problem, and jet fuel is really really hard to beat for that. For batteries it would not be a little breakthrough needed, it would need to be an incredible breakthrough, and nobody has any idea how that might work. The fundamental issue is batteries, in essence, carry their own "oxidizer" with them, which is very heavy. With jet fuel, you just suck the oxidizer from the air as needed. Any battery that used air as its "oxidizer" would be, literally, burning it, and wouldn't be a battery.