• Sustaera has developed a Direct Air Capture (DAC) system that uses direct electrical heating rather than steam to release captured CO2.

• The company claims this approach can achieve three to five times lower capital costs than existing DAC technologies, with 90%+ heating efficiency compared to roughly 40% for conventional thermal systems.

• Combined with a sorbent material that costs less than $10 per kilogram (compared to thousands of dollars per kilogram for competitors), CTO Cory Sanderson says the company sees a credible path to sub-$100 per tonne carbon removal by the early 2030s.

• Sustaera plans to build a commercial pilot in North America next year, with Stripe and Shopify as early credit buyers.

• For aviation, Sustaera positions itself as a potential CO2 feedstock provider for synthetic jet fuel production, and as a source of DAC-backed carbon removal credits that offer the permanence and measurability that traditional offsets have failed to deliver

North Carolina-based Sustaera has developed a Direct Air Capture (DAC) system that it says can remove CO2 from the atmosphere at three to five times lower capital cost than existing technologies.

If those numbers hold at scale, Sustaera believes it has a path to sub-$100 per tonne carbon removal, the threshold widely regarded as the point where DAC becomes commercially viable. The company is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the US Department of Energy, and the XPRIZE for Carbon Removal, and has existing credit contracts with Stripe and Shopify.

This comes as the wider DAC industry is under scrutiny for its cost projections. But in an interview with Sustainability in the Air, CTO and co-founder Cory Sanderson made the case that Sustaera’s advantage comes not from a single lab breakthrough, but from an engineering approach shaped by his 12 years building industrial-scale gas separation plants at carbon capture company Air Products.

“You need to go and find the market and the problem first and then develop the product and the solution that goes for that,” Sanderson said. “That’s the approach that we took.”

The electric jacket

Most solid sorbent DAC systems use steam heat to release captured CO2 from the sorbent material.

“This is almost like putting a jacket around you that has a little electric heater, and that’s just heating you,” Sanderson explained. “You’re not heating the whole home.”

In technical terms, Sustaera’s sorbent and its electrical heating element are in close contact. Power goes in, the sorbent heats up almost instantaneously, CO2 is released, and the system swings back. The surrounding gas barely rises in temperature.

Sustaera claims this approach achieves heating efficiency of 90%+ compared to around 40% for conventional thermal systems.

An important distinction: that 90% figure refers specifically to the conversion of electricity to heat at the sorbent, not to total system energy consumption per tonne of CO2.

A cheaper sorbent

The material that actually grabs CO2 from the air is often the most expensive component in a DAC system. Sustaera uses an amino acid salt, a different class of sorbent from what others in the industry employ.

The amino acid salt has the amine group that attracts CO2 at low concentrations, but it is tethered to a different chemical group that gives it greater durability, meaning it can withstand more heating cycles before degrading.

“We can get years’ worth of our sorbent in operation before we recommend refurbishing it,” Sanderson said. Refurbishment is a simple washing and recoating process using widely available materials.

The $100 question

The sub-$100 per tonne figure has been the DAC industry’s stated goal for years. Few companies in this sector have detailed a credible path to get there.

Sanderson believes Sustaera’s combination of lower capital costs, from combining the adsorption and desorption systems into a single unit, and lower operating costs from electric heating puts the company on that path.

Sanderson’s timeline is to reach sub-$100 per tonne within five years, at a scale of 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of CO2 removal, achievable after building and iterating on a few modular units.

The behind-the-meter play

One of the more interesting elements of Sustaera’s strategy is how it plans to access cheap power.

Because the system is all-electric and can start up in minutes, it does not need baseload power. It can run on intermittent renewable energy, solar, wind, or a combination, connecting directly behind the meter at a generation site.

In the US and globally, there are massive queues for renewable energy projects waiting for grid interconnection. Those projects generate power but cannot yet sell it to the grid.

The modular design makes this work. A facility contains multiple separation units that can be turned on individually. If only a fraction of the available power is flowing, only a fraction of the units run. There is no penalty for stopping and starting.

What it means for aviation

Sustaera’s first market will be permanent carbon removal through sequestration, working with technology-agnostic project developers like Deep Sky. The company already has carbon removal credit contracts with Stripe and Shopify, and plans to build a commercial pilot in North America with operations beginning in 2027.

“We are a feedstock provider,” Sanderson said. “Anyone that’s interested, we’re happy to have those conversations.”

DAC-backed credits also offer airlines something traditional offsets have failed to deliver: permanence and measurability. Sanderson acknowledged that DAC credits will initially cost more than forestry-based offsets. But he argued the certainty is worth the premium.

“DAC is a known, measurable thing that we will be able to show and prove,” he said. “This is exactly how much was taken out.”

What to watch

Two things to watch as the company moves toward its commercial pilot.

• First, the total system energy figure. The 90%+ heating efficiency is meaningful but measures only one part of the process.

• Second, the sub-$100 pathway depends on cheap renewable power, sorbent durability over years of operation, and the modular units performing as expected in real-world conditions.

Sanderson’s industrial background, Sustaera’s engineering-first approach, and the behind-the-meter model are worth taking seriously. But the question, as always is whether the projections survive contact with reality.

The 2027 pilot will be the first genuine test.

While one can only guess how SAF markets will develop between now and 2035, airlines cannot wait for certainty before acting, decisions made in 2026 will determine cost exposure and supply access for the rest of the decade.

This report is a decision-support tool for airline teams navigating SAF cost exposure, compliance risk and procurement strategy with a primary focus on the second half of this decade to 2030.

This new report examines SAF from a practical airline perspective, focusing on the key decisions leadership teams need to make as mandates ramp up toward 2030. In particular, it looks at how airlines should approach:

1. SAF cost exposure and budgeting, including the full compliance cost stack, supplier fees, and route-level impact on ticket prices.

2. Dual regulatory frameworks, with different structures across ReFuelEU Aviation and the UK SAF Mandate requiring distinct compliance strategies.

3. Supply reality and the compliance gap, including limited SAF availability, feedstock concentration risk, and the implications for meeting 2030 targets.

4. eSAF readiness and procurement strategy, covering project maturity, hydrogen constraints, and how airlines should engage with offtake agreements and policy mechanisms today.

Download the full report for a detailed breakdown of SAF costs, supply outlook, and the decisions airlines need to make before 2030.

• Fusion combines light atoms rather than splitting heavy ones. It carries none of the meltdown or long-term waste risks associated with fission.

• Fusion fuel has an energy density roughly 10 million times greater than oil, with effectively limitless raw materials, meaning there is no floor on how cheap the energy could eventually become.

• Commercial fusion power is most credibly projected for the 2040s, which is precisely when SAF production needs to scale from millions to billions of litres.

• Fusion is already in use in aviation: SHINE Technologies uses fusion-generated neutrons to inspect jet engine turbine blades for defects invisible to X-rays.

• Plan for fission now. Keep fusion in your peripheral vision.

Last week, we made the case that small modular nuclear reactors could provide the always-on, low-carbon electricity that power-to-liquid SAF production demands. That piece was about what fission can deliver within the next decade. This is about what comes after.

At SXSW 2026, a panel titled “The Great Fusion Debate: How Far Away Are We Really?” brought together Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE Technologies, one of the few companies already generating commercial revenue from fusion; Dr Melanie Windridge, founder of Fusion Energy Insights; and Luke Ward, investment manager at Baillie Gifford. It was moderated by Jacob Goldstein, podcast host and author at Pushkin Industries.

Two ways to go nuclear

First, a quick explanation. The small modular reactors in last week’s piece are fission reactors, which split heavy atoms (such as uranium) to release energy. This is the same process that has powered conventional nuclear plants for decades, miniaturised and modernised.

Crucially, fusion avoids the two risks that have defined public anxiety about nuclear power. There is no possibility of a runaway chain reaction (the Chernobyl scenario), and no long-lived radioactive waste requiring storage for thousands of years. As Piefer put it, fusion is nuclear energy, but without the core risks of fission.

But the catch is formidable. Confining plasma at temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees remains one of humanity’s hardest engineering challenges. Despite decades of research and billions in private investment — Commonwealth Fusion Systems alone has raised over $2 billion — no fusion reactor has produced commercial electricity.

Fusion is already in aviation

Before getting to the long-term energy vision, it is worth noting that fusion technology is already touching aviation in a very specific way.

Piefer described how SHINE, via its Phoenix Imaging Center, uses neutrons generated by fusion reactions to inspect modern jet engine turbine blades. These blades operate above their own melting point, kept intact by intricate internal cooling channels through which compressed cold air is pumped. Manufacturing defects in those channels, invisible to conventional X-rays, can cause catastrophic engine failure. Fusion-generated neutrons can see what X-rays cannot, and SHINE is already selling this service to defence and aerospace customers.

It is a niche application, but it makes an important point: fusion’s value to aviation is already being proven through its by-products, before electricity even enters the frame.

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10 million to one

For power-to-liquid SAF, where each tonne of e-kerosene requires 30 to 50 megawatt-hours of electricity, the cost of energy is everything. Fusion can potentially transform the economics of making it.

Windridge reinforced the point from the supply side: Fusion fuel from deuterium in seawater, with lithium for breeding, is so abundant that fuel cost is unlikely to constrain long‑term fusion economics; instead, overall costs will be driven mainly by the complexity and capital cost of reactors, blankets, and supporting infrastructure. Piefer compared the trajectory to semiconductors: an industry that has seen trillions of times improvement in cost performance over 70 years, driven by the same principle of near-unlimited scalability.

But when?

The panel converged on a rough timeline: energy breakeven by the early 2030s, first electricity by the mid-2030s, and commercial rollout beginning in the 2040s.

All three acknowledged the old joke that fusion is always 20 years away, but argued the landscape has fundamentally changed. A decade ago, the sector was dominated by government-funded megaprojects like ITER, a machine Windridge described as the size of a cathedral, when we want something more the size of a church.

Today, private companies with commercial discipline are building smaller, asking how to reach profitability, and generating revenue along the way from intermediate products like medical isotopes and superconducting magnets. SHINE is already building a half-billion-dollar facility to produce 20 million doses of medical isotopes per year using fusion-generated neutrons.

Ward drew a useful comparison to SpaceX: the ambition is Mars, but the business runs on commercialising low Earth orbit. Fusion companies need the same kind of stepping-stone economics to fund the journey to grid-scale power. The consensus was that fusion will be commercially useful — in medicine, inspection, and materials — long before it produces electricity at scale.

What this means for SAF

The timeline matters because of where aviation’s mandates are heading. The EU’s SAF obligation ramps to 70% by 2050, with a dedicated sub-mandate for e-fuels. The UK’s PtL targets reach their full ambition in the same period. Meeting those volumes will require clean electricity at a scale and cost that intermittent renewables alone are unlikely to provide.

And where fission can already offer SAF producers pink hydrogen competitive with green hydrogen, fusion’s promise is an energy source that keeps getting cheaper with no fuel-cost floor. That is the trajectory that could eventually bring e-kerosene within reach of price parity with conventional jet fuel.

Engage early

Windridge’s parting advice? In every major energy transition, the people who engaged early were the ones who did best. The risk with fusion is that it arrives, and your industry is not ready.

Ward’s closing remark landed the same point from a different angle: innovation has to be better and cheaper than its predecessors at scale. That principle applies equally to the reactor and the fuel it produces.

For anyone in aviation watching the PtL space: plan for fission now. But keep fusion in your peripheral vision. The technology that powers the first wave of nuclear SAF plants may not be the technology powering them in 2050.

• Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) remains below 1% of global jet fuel supply, and the most promising long-term pathway — e-fuels (also known as power-to-liquids) — faces a fundamental energy problem: it requires enormous quantities of constant, low-carbon electricity that renewables alone struggle to provide reliably.

• Nuclear energy, and small modular reactors (SMRs) in particular, could solve this. Running at ~95% capacity with a fraction of the land footprint of renewables, SMRs offer the always-on baseload power that industrial-scale SAF production needs.

• A single Rolls-Royce SMR, paired with Equilibrion’s Eq.flight technology, could produce over 160 million litres of SAF per year — roughly a third of the UK’s entire 2040 power-to-liquids target from one facility.

• The economics are improving: nuclear-derived “pink hydrogen” is already cheaper per kilogram than green hydrogen, and policy tailwinds are building in both the UK and EU.

• This isn’t a near-term fix. Nuclear SAF is a decade-plus infrastructure play, but for an industry that needs fuel at scale and reliably for decades, it may be the most credible long-duration backbone yet identified.

SAF accounts for less than 1% of global jet fuel supply, even as European mandates are in place, and with countries such as Singapore and Thailand following suit.

That supply crunch is particularly acute when it comes to so-called e-fuels, where you need substantial quantities of reliable, low-carbon electricity to produce them. A growing number of voices in aviation now believe nuclear energy is well positioned to solve this problem; prominent among them is Emirates President Sir Tim Clark.

In our January 2026 trends report “What could strengthen aviation’s decarbonisation efforts?” we identified new nuclear — particularly small modular reactors (SMRs) — as one of five technologies with the potential to reshape aviation’s energy landscape. That case has only strengthened since then.

The e-fuels energy bottleneck

The power-to-liquids (PtL or e-fuels) pathway involves using electricity to split water into hydrogen via electrolysis, capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, and combining the two to synthesise a liquid hydrocarbon, which is a drop-in fuel, meaning it works like conventional jet fuel. It is widely regarded as the cleanest SAF pathway, which is why both the European Union and United Kingdom have an e-fuels sub-mandate under the broader SAF mandate.

Renewables such as wind and solar are essential to the energy transition, but they come with well-documented limitations for industrial-scale fuel production: intermittency, large land requirements, and the need for expensive energy storage to maintain continuous operation.

Nuclear energy sidesteps most of these constraints. A reactor operates at capacity factors of around 95%, producing steady baseload power regardless of weather or time of day. Its land footprint is a fraction of that of an equivalent renewable installation. And its lifecycle carbon intensity is comparable to wind, among the lowest of any energy source.

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Enter the small modular reactor

The nuclear technology attracting most attention in aviation circles is not the conventional gigawatt-scale plant, but the small modular reactor, or SMR. These are factory-built units typically generating up to 300 megawatts of electricity, designed for faster construction, lower capital risk, and modular deployment close to industrial demand.

One company working at this intersection is Equilibrion, a UK-based project development firm founded to create commercial applications for nuclear energy in hard-to-decarbonise sectors. Its proprietary system, Eq.flight, is specifically engineered to integrate with nuclear electricity and heat for PtL SAF production.

From concept to collaboration

In March 2026, Equilibrion and Rolls-Royce SMR announced a memorandum of understanding to assess how Eq.flight could be powered by the Rolls-Royce SMR design.

“Aviation will only meet its climate commitments if SAF becomes available in large, dependable volumes,” says Caroline Longman, Director at Equilibrion, in an interview with Sustainability in the Air. “Nuclear-derived fuel production offers the reliability, scalability and low carbon intensity needed to deliver that future.”

Longman, whose background spans more than 15 years in major nuclear innovation programmes, frames the opportunity in pragmatic terms. The power-to-liquids pathway is widely acknowledged to be the ultimate long-term solution for SAF, she notes, but it has been held back by the cost and intermittency of renewable power. Nuclear changes that equation.

The economics are moving in the right direction. Analysis by Lazard and others suggests that pink hydrogen, produced via nuclear‑powered electrolysis, could come in at roughly $3.07-4.33 per kilogram unsubsidised, compared with about $4.33–6.05 per kilogram for unsubsidised green hydrogen, reflecting the advantage of nuclear’s higher utilisation rates and more stable baseload‑style output

At the same time, a feasibility study completed by Bristol Airport and Equilibrion, with support from Q8Aviation and pipeline operator Exolum, found that SMRs sited in South West England could generate both SAF and hydrogen for the region.
It projects that this could reduce emissions from Bristol Airport’s flights by 29% relative to current baselines by 2035, while meeting growing demand for flight and ground operations.

Separately, Equilibrion secured UK Department for Transport funding under the Advanced Fuels Fund for its Eq.flight PtL SAF technology, which is designed to pair with nuclear power. They are working with engineering partner Kent on pre‑FEED design for a demonstration plant, targeting operations around 2030–31.

The policy tailwind and sober realities

The timing aligns with a broader shift in energy policy. The UK government’s Advanced Nuclear Framework is designed to attract investment into advanced reactor development, while Great British Energy Nuclear provides an additional institutional anchor. Across the Channel, the European Commission has pledged €200 million to support nuclear technologies and unveiled a strategy to have SMRs operational by the early 2030s. A bloc of nine EU member states led by France has successfully pushed for greater regulatory recognition of nuclear-derived hydrogen — a development that could open significant markets for pink hydrogen and nuclear SAF.

None of this will happen quickly. Given the large capital expenditure required, nuclear projects take longer to build than renewable installations, and first-of-a-kind deployments carry regulatory and financing risks that should not be underestimated. Public acceptance remains uneven, and siting reactors near airports or fuel production hubs will require careful navigation.

But the counterargument is one of timescale and durability. Once operational, a nuclear SAF facility runs for decades, providing long-term employment and energy security that is largely insulated from weather, grid volatility, and geopolitical disruption. Longman estimates that each Eq.flight facility could generate around 10,000 skilled jobs over its lifetime.

As a result, rather than being a silver bullet, nuclear SAF represents a serious, long-duration infrastructure investment. One that, if engineering and economics hold up over the next decade, could provide the always-on energy backbone the industry has been searching for.

Note: This article is based on the on-the-ground insights of Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying, who joined global leaders at the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

On the slushy, snowy promenade, in crowded meeting rooms, and over night caps, here are the best ideas I heard at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2026.

Geopolitics cannot be ignored

Geopolitics froze Davos in its steps. Literally. On Wednesday, when US President Trump landed (late) at Davos, cellphone jammers prevented any communications and soon WiFi at many of the chalets was turned off. Even if you try to ignore geopolitics, you can’t.

All industries are feeling the impact of the uncertainty in global geopolitics. Travel is especially sensitive. Already, we see the number of travellers to the US cratering, despite the slide in the USD. As a result, airlines will need to be creative. From Air Canada launching Sapporo from Vancouver, as opposed to a US destination, to United, Delta and British Airways focusing on premium travellers to drive margins instead of load factors.

“There will be more AI-powered robots than humans in a decade,” Elon Musk

A conversation with Elon Musk revealed lots of nuggets including his optimistic take on the AI-powered robots among us. This is not to say that there will be humanoid robots doing our laundry and dishes this decade, but he predicted a future where our jobs are heavily complemented by robots.

Applying this to aviation, you’re unlikely to see robots serving you drinks in-flight any time soon. But robotics is everywhere. From iris-scanning as your boarding pass to driverless electric tractors transporting bags across the tarmac.

This was a point I made in my interview with Ashiss Dash at the Infosys chalet, on AI in Aviation.

On Sustainability: Economically better solutions will thrive

The CEO of TotalEnergies was on stage hoping that the ReFuel EU mandate would be lifted or diluted and he wouldn’t need to invest in SAF plants. While I wholly disagree with his approach that’s based on hope, he does have a point about green premiums. Airlines (or passengers) cannot foot the bill of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that’s two to five times the cost of jet fuel.

At the stunning Alpine stage outside the MIT Dome in Davos, I was asked, “What are the ideas with the biggest implications for aviation?” My reply was that ESG is out and AI is in.

By that, I meant that the focus on short term ESG compliance was not part of the discussions. Sustainability as “box ticking exercise” no longer exists. Sustainability will have to win on its economic merit.

“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” Canadian PM, Mark Carney

As a Canadian, listening to Mark Carney’s speech on Tuesday was exhilarating. It’s magical when a global leader is also a good orator. He encapsulated his speech by highlighting that “nostalgia is not a strategy“. He highlighted the importance of showing up to the discussions that matter and making your voice heard, no matter how small.

Applying his guidance to aviation, I observed that barely any airline or airport CEOs showed up to WEF this year. Nobody from Boeing or Airbus was in attendance. I met one airport CEO from South America and the CEO of Embraer was there. The leaders from our industry were not to be seen in the rooms where major policy and corporate decisions get made. I’m not sure why, but this needs to change. Here’s hoping that more leaders are at the table next year.

Other ideas worth noting

Davos is exhilarating because of the presence of very smart people who have their guards down (and have no bodyguards either!). Thanks to serendipitous meetings and getting pulled into rooms one had not planned to be in, one learns a lot. So here are a few other ideas I found to be important at the World Economic Forum in Davos 2026:

1. Demis Hassabis on why the AI shift is greater than the Industrial Revolution ⚙️🔗 https://lnkd.in/e7vV5zV6

2. Yuval Noah Harari and Max Tegmark on humanity and Artificial Intelligence 🧠🔗 https://lnkd.in/eg-EXEf9

3. Dario Amodei (of Anthropic) on AI: Power and Risk ⚖️🔗 https://lnkd.in/e9Vquy53

4. Scaling AI: Now comes the hard part 📈🔗 https://lnkd.in/eE3jab6p

5. Shashank Nigam on the ESG hiatus

Airlines refresh uniforms every 10-20 years, creating textile waste that rarely gets attention. British Airways’ partnership with Bags of Ethics shows a different approach: in its 2023 update, BA retired 16,000 uniforms and upcycled them into passport holders, luggage tags, and blankets instead of disposing of them. The collaboration diverted 8 tonnes from landfill, produced over 10,000 items, and developed infrastructure that could support similar efforts in other industries managing large volumes of end-of-life textiles.

When British Airways unveiled its new Ozwald Boateng-designed uniforms in September 2023, the airline faced a sustainability challenge: what to do with thousands of decommissioned Julien Macdonald uniforms that had served cabin crew and pilots for two decades.

The solution came through an innovative partnership with Bags of Ethics, that gave a second life to the retired uniforms by turning them into a range of practical, upcycled travel accessories.

The scale of the challenge

With 711,000 tonnes of textiles discarded annually in the UK alone, the aviation industry’s uniform waste represents a significant environmental concern. British Airways chose to tackle this head-on as part of its BA Better World sustainability strategy, partnering with Bags of Ethics, the world’s largest responsible manufacturer of reusable products.

The project’s scope was ambitious: transforming over 16,000 legacy uniforms into functional travel accessories whilst diverting eight tonnes of textile waste from landfill. The result was more than 10,000 upcycled products, including passport holders, luggage tags, picnic blankets and document holders; items designed to be gifted to colleagues, clients and stakeholders.

Innovation through collaboration

Bags of Ethics, known globally for its reusable bags and ethical manufacturing, invested two years in developing the infrastructure to make large-scale upcycling feasible. This included introducing new sorting technologies, pattern design systems, and advanced disassembly techniques.

At Bags of Ethics’ facility in Pondicherry, India, more than 80% of the workforce comprises women, who have been trained in these advanced remanufacturing methods. The process is deliberately manual to preserve fabric integrity and reduce the energy consumption involved in automated production, and takes about four times longer than making new items from scratch.

Overcoming challenges

The partnership required significant infrastructure investment and process innovation. The transportation of materials proved particularly challenging: garments needed careful packing and sorting by material type to facilitate quicker disassembly process. The company also had to navigate complex international customs regulations to enable finished garments to be imported, upcycled and re-exported without being classified as textile dumping. The finished products were transported primarily by sea to minimise carbon emissions.

While the company has so far focused on uniforms, the company recognises opportunities across other aviation textiles, from seat covers and carpets to cabin crew scarves and blankets. The model also holds potential for other industries such as retail, hospitality, and logistics, where large volumes of textiles are routinely discarded.

Looking forward

While Bags of Ethics acknowledges they haven’t yet tracked Scope 3 emissions and a detailed carbon footprint analysis remains to be undertaken, the benefits of the process cannot be overlooked.

The partnership between British Airways and Bags of Ethics demonstrates that large-scale textile upcycling is technically achievable within complex global supply chains. By combining responsible design, manual craftsmanship, and targeted investment in infrastructure, the initiative presents a replicable approach for managing end-of-life textiles.

As Dr R. Sri Ram, Founder of Bags of Ethics, notes: “This project has been transformative; from product design and supply chain innovation to responsible production. We hope it serves as a blueprint for circularity in business across industries.”

As more sectors look to integrate circularity into their business, the British Airways and Bags of Ethics model offers hope that transformation at scale can be achievable – turning what could have been a waste disposal problem into an opportunity for innovation, employment and environmental stewardship.

Medium- and long-haul aviation will depend on drop-in fuels compatible with today’s aircraft, increasingly produced from non-fossil carbon and hydrogen. Shorter routes will rely on electric, hybrid-electric or hydrogen aircraft where physics allows. Airports will electrify ground operations, address non-CO2 effects such as contrails, and draw more heavily on clean power. Residual emissions will need to be addressed through permanent carbon removal, with CO2 captured and stored deep underground.

• Sustainable aviation fuels are limited by feedstock availability and cost.

• Synthetic fuels depend on vast amounts of cheap, clean energy and hydrogen that do not yet exist at scale.

• Electrification is pushing airport power demand beyond what many grids can reliably supply.

• Carbon removals are essential in theory, but remain expensive and energy-intensive in practice.

The result is a widening gap between ambition and execution.

Across two books, more than 200 interviews, and years of tracking climate-tech developments across aviation, energy and carbon removal, one pattern has become increasingly clear: progress is being slowed less by a lack of invention, and more by bottlenecks.

Many first-generation solutions proved technical feasibility, but failed to clear the economic, energy or infrastructure hurdles required for scale. Some collapsed outright. Others survived, but stalled.

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What we’re tracking in 2026

This new outlook does not attempt to predict the future or catalogue every emerging technology. Instead, it focuses on five areas where second-generation approaches are beginning to address specific constraints:

• Natural hydrogen, with the potential to radically lower synthetic fuel costs if recoverable at scale;

• On-site battery storage and microgrids, as airports confront rising electricity demand and grid fragility;

• New nuclear, including small modular and micro-reactors, as a source of constant, low-carbon power;

• Direct Air Capture 2.0, as the sector shifts toward more energy-efficient systems;

• Waste-to-SAF 2.0, using regulated biogenic waste streams rather than mixed municipal waste.

None of these is a silver bullet, especially in isolation. But if they succeed, they could materially improve the odds that aviation’s decarbonisation pathways actually work through the 2030s.

Access your free copy of the report here.

Her Paris-based company, Yama Carbon, is developing a DAC system that is less focused on laboratory breakthroughs and more on industrial reality. Rather than relying on bespoke plants and custom equipment, Yama is attempting to make carbon capture more affordable by utilising mass-manufactured components and familiar industrial processes.

The challenge, she argues, is building systems that can last, rather than just reducing energy use.

Yama employs an electrochemical approach to capture carbon dioxide, utilising a combination of pH changes and low-grade heat. Compared with many first-generation DAC systems, the process requires less thermal energy.

In industry terms, it is the balance of plant, the part of large systems that rarely features in investor decks, but often dominates final costs.

Maintenance is a significant factor. Electrochemical systems rely on membranes, which degrade over time. Upfront cost matters less, Gonzalez argues, than how often those components need to be replaced. “It’s okay to pay upfront,” she said. “The problem is to replace.”

So, while many of the roughly 150 DAC startups focus on sorbents or capture chemistry, Yama has chosen to concentrate on the physical infrastructure that surrounds the process.

Yama’s underlying technology utilises electrodialysis, a method that has long been employed in water treatment and desalination. The company’s bet is that borrowing from mature industries reduces manufacturing risk and speeds deployment.

Dealing with energy use

Yama is currently operating a small pilot facility near Paris, capturing around 25 tonnes of CO₂ per year. Energy use remains one of the main criticisms of DAC.

Gonzalez is realistic about how much further those numbers can fall. Laboratory tests already have reached close to 1,000 kilowatt-hours per tonne, she said. “In terms of energy, you can improve,” she said. “But you can’t divide by 10.” The implication is clear: future cost reductions will come from engineering discipline, not energy miracles.

Scaling out, not packaging up

Like many newer DAC firms, Yama describes its system as modular. But Gonzalez draws a sharp distinction between modular equipment and fully containerised plants. Electrochemical membranes have size limits, which means larger facilities are built by duplicating stacks. That approach allows gradual scale-up.

Her confidence draws on her previous experience in the heavy industry, including steel, cement, aluminium, and sugar, where cost curves have been reduced through engineering.

Yama’s approach is part of a broader reassessment among a new wave of European DAC startups. Paris-based Norma is focused on energy recovery. Dutch firm Carbyon emphasises fast capture rates. Belgian startup Sirona borrows manufacturing ideas from the electric-vehicle sector. Each is looking for alternatives to the large, bespoke facilities built by early DAC pioneers.

Potential for E-Fuels

Yama sees two early markets for its technology. One is the emerging carbon-removal credit market. The other is synthetic fuels for aviation and other sectors.

Producers of e-fuels need clean, reliable sources of CO₂. Early projects are expected to rely on biogenic sources; however, supply constraints may prompt developers to consider DAC as a means to secure long-term feedstock, especially as the EU E-Fuels sub-mandate for SAF takes effect after 2030.

“As a DAC company, you have to play on both markets,” Gonzalez said.

Yama plans to commission its first-of-a-kind commercial-scale plant around 2030, capturing roughly 50,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Strategic deployment

Geography will play a significant role in determining where DAC plants get built. Gonzalez recently visited Japan, where she found strong interest from utilities and industrial companies in permanent carbon removal. But Japan itself, she noted, is unlikely to host large-scale DAC facilities. Instead, the focus there is on offtake agreements and investment rather than domestic deployment.

Co-location with e-fuel producers presents another option, particularly as synthetic fuel mandates take effect. Rather than building standalone facilities and transporting CO₂, DAC units could be integrated directly with fuel production plants.

Answering the critics

Direct Air Capture remains controversial. Critics argue it diverts attention from emissions reduction, pointing to the involvement of fossil fuel companies in DAC projects. Others doubt whether DAC can ever be commercially viable due to its high cost and energy consumption.

Gonzalez does not dismiss critics’ concerns, but given that IPCC scenarios for 2050 account for an element of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), she points out the limits of natural solutions. Nature-based removal currently delivers around two billion tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Financing the next step

Yama has raised approximately €4.5 million to date, through a combination of investments, grants, and European public funding. The next milestone is a 365-tonne-per-year demonstration plant, followed by a 5,000-tonne facility later in the decade. For that project, Gonzalez hopes to avoid heavy dilution.

By the mid-2030s, Gonzalez hopes Yama will be developing projects at the million-tonne scale. Though still a small share of global removal needs, it would still mark significant progress and scale.

For an industry often defined by laboratory claims, Yama’s focus on industrial execution stands out. Whether it works will become clear as its future plants come online.

For now, the company is building. In a field crowded with projections, that may be its clearest signal yet.

Unlike companies that build DAC facilities, Dotz operates as a specialised materials supplier, providing chemical components used inside capture systems. These sorbents bind to CO₂ from ambient air, where concentrations are roughly 420 parts per million. Their efficiency directly influences overall energy consumption, which is the primary cost driver in DAC operations.

Accordingly, Dotz plans to sell or license its materials to multiple DAC developers rather than constructing its own plants.

Promising lab results

In laboratory testing, Dotz reports that its sorbents capture approximately twice as much CO₂ as existing commercial materials. Additionally, the captured carbon can be released at about 70 degrees Celsius — lower than many current systems — reducing energy needs and potentially cutting operational expenses.

The company has secured an agreement with U.S.-based Carbon Capture Inc. to test its materials, and several other firms are conducting lab evaluations, with some progressing to larger pilot demonstrations. Dotz is also working with an unnamed automotive manufacturer on performance assessments.

Looking toward aviation, Shoshaney-Kleiner says Dotz is collaborating with developers of synthetic fuels, for whom high-purity CO₂ serves as a critical feedstock. Beyond e-fuels production, the aviation sector is increasingly interested in carbon removal technologies as a way to generate reliable carbon credits, moving away from traditional offsets that face growing credibility concerns.

Industry landscape and scaling up

Most sorbents used in DAC today were originally designed for other industries, such as water treatment.

Now, several other companies are creating materials tailored specifically for low atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. These include Ireland’s NEG8 Carbon, which employs low-temperature electrostatic capture, and fellow Israeli startup RepAir, developer of a polymer-based system.

According to Shoshaney-Kleiner, broader commercial deployment still hinges on continued policy backing. “Governmental or international support for this industry is really vital, especially in these years where the economics doesn’t make sense yet,” she noted. Currently, many DAC projects rely heavily on incentives and advance purchase agreements, with the sector being at a relatively early stage of development.

Dotz anticipates that further testing will take place before full commercial adoption, targeting initial sales around 2027 or 2028.

The idea: make carbon capture a product, not a project. It’s an approach Skytree shares with European innovators like Belgium’s Sirona, the Netherlands’ Carbyon, and France’s Norma, all of which challenge the mega-facility model with speed, modularity, and manufacturing-line production.

Download: Our report on DAC pioneers

Field evidence, not PowerPoint slides

The DAC sector is crowded with big promises, but Skytree sees its differentiator as deployment. The company has installed eight pre-production systems, known as “Cumulus,” across European greenhouses, university test centers, and one operational customer site in Belgium.

Skytree’s units have already produced beverage-grade CO₂ in the Netherlands. In controlled agriculture trials at Wageningen University and Delphy, Skytree-supplied CO₂ supported crop growth with positive results.

These use cases matter because most CO₂ consumed today isn’t buried underground, but used in products and processes and then returned to the air. Skytree calls this alternative “circular CO₂”: capture from air, use, and repeat without adding new fossil emissions.

A market looking for molecules

Global CO₂ supply is tightening. Fossil CO₂ streams, once cheap and abundant, are declining as industries decarbonise. Yet demand for CO₂ is rising, not only for food and beverage uses but for next-generation fuels.

Aviation is one of the main drivers. The EU requires that a percentage of jet fuel sold in Europe be synthetic e-SAF starting in 2030, a mandate that cannot be met without new non-fossil CO₂ sources.

This shift also reflects the sector’s bruising experience with offsets, which has faced a series of reputational hits questioning its role as a net-zero tool. Aviation’s CORSIA scheme faces a compliance crisis: just 15.8 million eligible credits exist against 144 million needed by 2028, mainly from questionable avoided-deforestation schemes in Guyana. As offset credibility collapses, airlines are turning to carbon removal that can be measured and audited rather than hoped for.

Several carriers, including United Airlines, Lufthansa, American Airlines, and British Airways, have made early DAC investments and commitments.

Engineering built for iteration

DAC is young, and the technology is advancing fast. Performance gains come quickly, and machines risk becoming obsolete before they pay back their costs.

The system’s software automatically adjusts to the new materials, unlocking higher capture rates or lower energy use without any hardware changes.

Earlier this year, Skytree co-developed a new sorbent that delivered a 25 percent performance jump. Existing machines will get that upgrade when their materials need replacing.

Scaling by assembly line, not megaproject

In 2024, Skytree signed a manufacturing partnership with Scanfil to produce machines in Finland and Atlanta. That step moved the company closer to its commercial goal: capturing 10 million tonnes of CO₂ through customer deployments by 2030.

The units being produced, called ‘Stratus’, resemble large outdoor AC boxes, but each captures a ton of CO₂ a day. They can be stacked to form “parks” supplying carbon removal projects, e-fuel refineries, and greenhouses at an industrial scale.

Skytree has also opened a North American headquarters in Toronto and a U.S. office in Nashville. Canada’s incentives and storage geology make it a natural market for DAC, while Europe’s e-fuel mandates and energy security debates are accelerating demand closer to home.

A European moment, if it doesn’t slip away

Europe is emerging as a DAC innovation center. Climeworks, the world’s largest DAC company, is Swiss. Many of the new wave of modular innovators we have featured over the past year are European.

Skytree and other startups are pushing Brussels not to repeat Europe’s familiar pattern: nurture the science, then watch the U.S. or China industrialise it.

The opportunity is real. While U.S. policy has cooled, Europe has the technology and the policy momentum; the question is whether it can move fast enough to turn innovation into industrial leadership.

Aviation’s test

For aviation, DAC represents a dual solution. The same captured CO₂ can either be permanently stored for credible carbon removal, replacing discredited offsets, or converted into e-fuels that keep existing fleets flying with lower emissions.

The question now is whether this generation of systems can be built fast enough, cheap enough, and at a scale that matters, Skytree and the new breed of innovators is betting that it can.

Japanese manufacturing giant Honda is taking a contrarian path in the advanced air mobility (AAM) market, betting that hybrid-electric propulsion and manufacturing scale will trump the pure-electric strategies of rivals rushing to commercialise flying taxis.

At Dubai Airshow 2025, Honda’s eVTOL chief, Hirohide Azuma, laid out a timeline that won’t see commercial operations until the early 2030s, years after current market leaders Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation plan to launch their services.

According to Azuma, the delay is deliberate. “Joby and Archer are ahead of us, and I admit that they are moving forward,” Azuma said in an interview with Sustainability in the Air.

But while competitors chase headlines with ambitious timelines, Honda is playing a different game.

The hybrid gambit

Honda’s break from industry orthodoxy centres on propulsion. While Joby, Archer, and companies like the UK’s Vertical Aerospace pursue all-electric designs with ranges of roughly 100-200 kilometres, Honda’s gas turbine hybrid system delivers a range of 400 kilometres. That makes Honda’s electric air taxi a possibility for connecting cities, and not just to ferry passengers from Manhattan to JFK.

As a result, Honda’s electric air taxi will be able to carry four passengers plus luggage over inter-city distances, while many other competitors must choose between payload and range.

In terms of design, Honda has taken a safety-first approach. A tiltrotor, an aircraft that changes the angle of its rotors to generate both lift and thrust, has an advantage in terms of fuel efficiency.

However, Honda says that in the case of a malfunction, the integration of the lift/thrust functions may lead to multiple critical function losses. To address this safety concern, Honda eVTOL is equipped with eight rotors for vertical take-off and landing and two rotors for propulsion, ensuring a high degree of redundancy by distributing functions.

This not only ensures safety but also enables smaller rotor diameters, resulting in ultra-quiet operations. In addition to ensuring passenger comfort, the quietness of eVTOL will minimise the impact on the surrounding environment during take-off, landing, and in-flight.

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The certification card

Honda holds an important ace — the experience of producing HondaJet, which claims to be the ‘world’s most advanced light jet’.

Since 2015, Honda Aircraft Company has navigated FAA certification, established U.S. manufacturing, and built relationships with regulators.

This translates to potentially faster, cheaper certification with fewer hiccups. While startups run the risk of burning capital learning aerospace regulations, Honda already speaks the language.

Azuma told us that the company will leverage its North Carolina manufacturing facilities and FAA relationships to certify first in the U.S., then expand to Europe and Asia.

Why Honda is the dark horse to watch

Here are four reasons why Honda could disrupt the eVTOL sector’s current narrative:

1. Capital is key: Building a new aircraft requires billions in capital. Joby has raised $2 billion and still needs more. Honda can fund its entire eVTOL program from operating cash flow. If Honda wants an aircraft programme, it will simply build one — no roadshows, no dilution, no quarterly investor calls demanding faster timelines.

2. The HondaJet dividend: Certification isn’t just paperwork but is a consequence of years of building relationships with regulators, understanding aerospace quality systems, and hard-won knowledge of what kills aircraft programmes.

3. Hybrid’s hidden logic: Purists championing all-electric flight may be solving the wrong problem. Instead of short-hop air taxis, the real money may well be in 200-400 kilometre routes between cities, distances that batteries can’t economically serve for now.

   Honda’s hybrid systems bet that the market is bigger than just urban transport. So when Azuma told us they’ll switch to pure electric “if the battery technologies make a good technological progress,” he’s keeping options open while solving today’s actual use cases.

4. Manufacturing muscle matters: The eVTOL industry talks a lot about software and autonomy, but someone still needs to build thousands of aircraft cheaply and reliably at automotive scale. Honda manufactures millions of motorcycles, cars, and power products annually. They understand supply chains, quality control, and the economics of mass production. When this industry shifts from prototypes to products, manufacturing excellence will likely determine winners.

The bottom line? If you believe batteries will improve slowly, infrastructure will take time, and certification will prove a challenge, then Honda’s strategy looks prescient.

Mark your calendars: On December 1–2, 2025, the Future Aero Festival, hosted by our friends at Sustainable Aero Lab, will gather aviation’s top innovators, startups, and investors in Amsterdam.

The SimpliFlying team will be there in full force, with our CEO, Shashank Nigam, taking the stage alongside Tim Boeltken, Co-Founder & CEO of e-fuels pioneer INERATEC. We’d love to see you there too – and we’ve even arranged a special discount code for our readers (more on that below).

Why this festival is worth your attention

The Future Aero Festival is built for thoughtful, in-depth discussion. Rather than polished decks and buzzword panels, the focus is on honest, unscripted conversations about what it really takes to scale sustainable aviation. How do new technologies connect with viable business models? How do regulation, capital, and industrial execution line up? And what separates hype from true commercial momentum?

It’s a format that reflects the work of Sustainable Aero Lab, which launched in 2021 with a mission to accelerate climate-neutral aviation. Since then, they’ve worked closely with nearly 100 startups and reviewed over 1,000, offering targeted mentoring and deep connections between innovators and industry experts.

A glimpse at what’s on the agenda

This year’s agenda is packed with sessions that will resonate with anyone working in sustainable aviation. A few sessions we’re especially keen on:

• The SAF Reality Check: What’s actually slowing down production, despite mandates and momentum? With Peter Smeets (Bruski Smeets & Lange) and Tobias Lechtenfeld (Tech for Net-Zero).

• How to Scale Up in Europe: Why the region punches below its weight on aerospace startups — and how to fix it. With Constantijn van Oranje (TechLeap) and Nichola Bates (XeleratedFifty).

• Innovation as a Compass: KLM’s COO Maarten Stienen on balancing daily operations with long-term sustainable tech bets.

• Transformative Technologies: What it takes to turn breakthrough R&D into real-world commercial programmes. With Michael Winter, Chief Science Officer, RTX.

• And, of course, we’re especially excited about: From Molecules to Megatons – a fireside chat between Shashank Nigam and Tim Boeltken on INERATEC’s journey from lab to large-scale production, and what it takes to commercialise a science-first climate company.

Expect sharp insights from leaders at KLM, Embraer-X, Safran, RTX, Clean Aviation, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, alongside early-stage startups aiming to define what’s next.

If you’re working in aviation decarbonisation — whether on the operational, strategic, policy or startup side — this is one of the few events where the conversations are likely to match your reality.

Why we’re going — and why you might want to

We’ve been following Sustainable Aero Lab’s work since the beginning, and we admire how they’ve built bridges between innovation and execution.

The Future Aero Festival is a natural extension of that: focused, unfiltered, and designed to spark collaboration. We’re looking forward to hallway conversations, honest on-stage debates, and the kind of momentum that comes when strategy meets shared purpose.

If you’re around, please come say hello! We always enjoy putting faces to names and chatting with fellow sustainability enthusiasts.

To make it easier for our community to join, we’ve partnered with Sustainable Aero Lab to offer an exclusive discount on Future Aero Festival tickets.

🎟️ Use the code SIMPLICOOL at checkout here to get 15% off your registration fees.

Every year, millions of tonnes of sargassum seaweed drift from West Africa to the Caribbean, smothering beaches, releasing methane, and disrupting local economies. For most, it’s a coastal nightmare. For Dr Mar Fernández-Méndez, it’s a new kind of fuel story.

As the co-founder of MacroCarbon — and guest of last week’s Signal episode — Fernández-Méndez is leading a bold effort to turn this floating menace into carbon-negative sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

We’ve just published a free explainer report that unpacks the science, economics, and significance of this fast-moving field.

Here’s what you’ll find inside:

• How a drifting seaweed bloom became a $300M-a-year environmental emergency for the Caribbean;

• Lessons from the microalgae boom — and why MacroCarbon’s macroalgae model is different;

• How sargassum can produce four revenue streams — bio-stimulants, biochar, carbon black, and SAF;

• How carbon pricing and EU mandates make ocean-based SAF increasingly competitive;

• MacroCarbon’s carbon-negative fuel vision that enhances marine biodiversity instead of harming it.

Download the full explainer here

If you missed last week’s Signal episode with Dr Fernández-Méndez, you can listen here before diving into the full story:

Belfast’s Titanic Quarter was the stage for a landmark moment in aviation’s decarbonisation journey, as local green tech firm Catagen unveiled its new subsidiary, ClimaHtech Green Flight (CGF). The launch saw the signing of a multi-year offtake term sheet for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) involving two industry heavyweights: Ryanair and Shell Aviation Ireland (MJV).

The centrepiece came during a panel led by SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam, when Catagen CEO Dr Andrew Woods stepped on stage to reveal a surprise:

In his hand was a signed term sheet committing Ryanair and Shell Aviation Ireland (MJV) to offtake SAF from Catagen’s first-of-a-kind project. “It’s a multi-year agreement and we’re delighted to have the endorsement of both partners,” he told the audience.

Shashank Nigam then guided a discussion between executives from Ryanair, Shell Aviation Ireland, VINCI Airports and ClimaHtech Green Flight on how decentralised SAF production could redefine aviation fuel supply.

A decentralised model for SAF

Catagen’s patented modular reactor technology challenges the traditional paradigm of billion-dollar, centralised refineries that take a decade to build. Instead, ClimaHtech Green Flight aims to deploy factory-engineered, decentralised units near renewable energy sources or airports, each capable of producing up to 10 million litres of SAF annually.

Mel Courtney, CEO of ClimaHtech Green Flight, described the moment as a transition from proof-of-concept to commercialisation. “From what you see today, which is very real, to the next stage, which is fully commercialised. That’s the journey we are now on,” he told the Belfast audience.

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Industry leaders weigh in

Ryanair’s sustainability director, Steven Fitzgerald, said the decentralised model was especially attractive for airlines flying to smaller airports across Europe. By locating production next to renewable energy, he explained, Catagen can “connect demand with supply in a way that doesn’t exist with the centralised model.”

Shell Aviation Ireland’s Ken McHutcheon stressed the significance of producing fuel locally: “It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve seen in my time in aviation, something that can finally be done on the island of Ireland, producing fuel to ASTM 7566 standard and getting it to a wingtip.”

From the airport perspective, Germain Hurtado of VINCI Airports pointed to Catagen’s feedstock as reliable and widely available, and noted that airports with their own renewable generation could integrate such decentralised units as part of a broader push to net zero.

Throughout the discussion, Shashank Nigam drew the threads together, linking Belfast’s story to wider global trends. He argued that decentralised models “dramatically bring down the technology risk” compared with many SAF mega projects still struggling to reach a final investment decision.

He also reflected on the policy shift that made the Belfast launch possible: “The one big thing that has changed in just a year is how the UK has moved from debate to delivery. It’s already showing results - supporting startups, giving airlines revenue guarantees, and building a real ecosystem. That’s a model others are now watching.”

A Belfast story with global resonance

The launch positions Belfast as more than a local success story. As Catagen CEO Dr Andrew Woods explained, the aim is not just to pilot a new technology but to “scale a network of decentralised production units worldwide.”

With Ryanair and Shell Aviation Ireland (MJV) committing to offtake, ClimaHtech Green Flight signalling rapid rollout, and local and international airports interested in hosting future deployments, the city’s Titanic Quarter may soon become a key proving ground for the fuels that will power aviation’s next chapter.

Closing the session, Nigam summed up the bigger picture. While Belfast was the immediate focus, he said the model could serve as “a blueprint for how aviation fuels itself in the future, faster, smarter, and closer to where the demand is.”

At London's Carbon Capture Global Summit on September 3, industry executives said there’s insufficient captured CO2 available for purchase. The same week, researchers published a paper saying that we might be unable to store nearly as much CO2 underground as safely or extensively as assumed. Could this storage crisis actually make the case for using CO2 in fuels instead of burying it?

When supply can't meet demand

The problem became clear in the final session at the Carbon Capture Global Summit.

And this isn't just about finding any CO2 — it's about finding the right quality. For sustainable aviation fuels, the CO2 needs to be incredibly pure. "For an e-fuel, you have to be around 10 parts per billion," explained Jaime Casasus-Bribian from Ammagas. "If you're more than that, the catalyst gets poisoned."

Food companies can use CO2 that's ten times less pure, creating a hierarchy where aviation pays premium prices for premium purity.

The storage reality check

The discussion of this supply shortage couldn't have been more timely. The same week, researchers published findings suggesting the world has far less underground storage space for CO2 than previously thought.

The study, published in Nature and later covered by the Financial Times, asked a deceptively simple question: if we want to store CO2 underground safely, how much space do we actually have? The answer shocked many.

Even if we used every bit of this "safe" storage space purely to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, it would only cool the planet by less than one degree Celsius. The paper implies that, as a result, we probably can't rely on burying CO2 to address climate change.

However, if storage space is limited, turning CO2 into valuable products like fuels may become even more important.

The industry backlash

Not everyone bought the Nature study's conclusions. The research sparked heated online debates, with some calling it a useful "reality check" while others dismissed it as overly cautious.

• Some industry experts pointed out specific problems with the study. Dutch consultant Margriet Kuijper noted that it ruled out old gas fields that have never had earthquakes and could actually be made safer by filling them with CO2.

• Meanwhile, Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh from Carbon Upper Middle Management argued the study only looked at one type of underground storage while ignoring options like volcanic rock.

• Oxford Professor Jan Rosenow, however, supported the view articulated in the Nature paper that we should save limited storage space "for unavoidable emissions, not to prolong fossil power."

East vs. West: Two different strategies

The summit panel revealed these aren't just technical disagreements. They reflect fundamentally different regional approaches to CO2.

Singapore exemplifies this approach: 3% of the country's GDP comes from exporting chemicals. Instead of importing fossil materials to make these products, Sharma said Singapore could, for example, capture CO2 and turn it into "high-value, sustainable, and low-carbon" chemicals.

The transport economics problem

Distance matters more than purity when it comes to costs, a key factor in alternative fuels.

This proximity principle could reshape the industry. If the Nature study is correct and storage space is limited, local networks that turn CO2 into products become more attractive than long-distance pipelines to burial sites.

The bottom line for aviation

Aviation faces a straightforward supply chain problem. E-fuels need ultra-pure CO2, but there isn't enough being produced yet. Meanwhile, the carbon capture industry is divided on whether to focus on permanent storage or turning CO2 into products.

The debate over the Nature study highlights this challenge. If the researchers are right about limited storage space, utilisation becomes more important. If the Nature paper’s critics are right about the study being too conservative, storage remains a viable option alongside utilisation.

Either way, aviation needs the carbon capture sector to scale up quickly, whether for storage, utilisation, or both.

The panel "Creating demands and unblocking the future of the circular economy with CO2 utilisation" took place on September 3, 2024, at the Carbon Capture Global Summit in London. Participants: Trinh Chubbock (Gibson Dunn, Moderator), Jaime Casasus-Bribian (Ammongas), Andreas Bode (Lhoist), Shannon Watt (FuelCell Energy), Lee Beck (HIF Global), and Beena Sharma (CCU International).

Geoengineering is moving from fiction to reality — and aviation may be the delivery system. Our new explainer breaks down the science, risks, and what it means for airlines.

The year 536 CE marked what historian Michael McCormick calls "the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year."

That year, the sun, according to Roman historian Procopius, "gave forth its light without brightness... and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse." Chinese sources described "yellow ash-like substance from the sky" and snow falling in August. The Irish annals recorded simply: "A failure of bread."

Volcanic eruptions had ejected sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere on a gigantic scale, causing crop failures across continents, famine throughout Europe and Asia, making populations more susceptible to a plague that killed millions.

However, there is another example from the much more recent past. When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it injected millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing 0.5°C of global cooling for two years. Unlike the 536 AD disaster, this was a manageable, measurable dip that scientists could study.

The reality hijack: From fiction to $10 cooling credits

In 2022, former Y Combinator hardware chief Luke Iseman was listening to the audiobook of Neal Stephenson's novel Termination Shock while installing solar panels on his RV. Stephenson’s novel depicts a billionaire launching a geoengineering program: spraying sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere to cool the planet.

Given the climate emergency, this seemed like an obvious solution to Iseman. Why was no one doing this?

Within months, he teamed up with former Y Combinator alumnus Andrew Song to launch Make Sunsets, a startup that began launching weather balloons filled with sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere over Baja California, Mexico.

Soon, they were selling "cooling credits" at $10 per tonne (since reduced to $5), a fraction of the cost of carbon removal.

The reaction was swift, with some critics likening them to "Bond villains”. Meanwhile, having originally launched their balloons in Mexico, the controversy in the country had them take their operations back over the border.

More recently, the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an investigation into the practice. Conspiracy theorists now lump solar geoengineering with ‘chemtrails’ (contrails) as some nefarious scheme to alter the weather in Conservative-voting states.

The aviation connection: Same planes, different mission

The technology Song and others are pursuing isn't just climate science, but aviation engineering.

The aircraft that airlines operate daily could be modified with sulphur dioxide tanks and specialised nozzles for planetary climate control. This would essentially be high-altitude cargo missions, except the cargo would be Earth's thermostat.

Peter Irvine, a University of Chicago academic and co-founder of research and education body SRM360, is blunt about the feasibility: "We are effectively certain that it would work. The physics is understood. Sulphur dioxide particles are nearly the perfect size for reflecting solar radiation. You will cool the planet."

It’s worth noting that SAI isn’t the only option; other climate modification solutions are also on the table.

For instance, marine cloud brightening would spray seawater into ocean clouds to make them more reflective.

More ambitious proposals include space-based solar shields, a prospect being explored by startup Reflect Orbital. Meanwhile, research is being conducted into refreezing the Arctic using underwater bubbles or surface coatings to restore ice cover. But Irvine dismisses some of the more sci-fi solutions as impractical: "We're talking about millions of tonnes of material into space. Maybe in the 22nd century."

As a result, aircraft-based SAI remains the most viable near-term approach.

Song told us that the startup has attracted 900 customers, including high-profile figures like Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and "an owner of an NFL team.". These early adopters represent a small but influential group willing to bet on controversial climate technology.

The maverick vs the establishment

The collision between Silicon Valley urgency and academic caution defines the current geoengineering landscape. Organisations like SRM360 represent a measured approach, rigorous research, international cooperation, and informed discussion.

Make Sunsets, by contrast, embodies the "move fast and break things" ethos, with Song saying that inaction would mean, “we're living in a 4C, 5C world.”

Make Sunsets' controversial actions may even have inadvertently accelerated serious research by demonstrating that barriers to atmospheric intervention are lower than previously imagined. After all, when two non-scientists can purchase equipment on Amazon and begin stratospheric modification, the academic argument for "more research first" loses urgency.

The conspiracy problem: Chemtrails meet climate science

Solar geoengineering has collided headlong with one of the internet's most persistent conspiracy theories - of contrails, or ‘chemtrails’. Since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, thousands of posts now claim commercial aircraft spray poison or control the weather through contrails.

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is a particularly high-profile advocate of this line of thought. According to the Guardian, during one TV discussion he said “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it. Find out who’s doing it and holding them accountable.”

One tweet from a right-wing podcaster, for example, blames Bill Gates for deliberately changing the weather, resulting in deadly storms, and calls for his arrest. This has so far received almost 10k likes. Over 34 states have discussed geoengineering bans and prominent figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene have called for federal prohibition.

All this has created a surreal policy environment where legitimate climate research must overcome suspicion created by outlandish theories.

The global divide: Desperation vs responsibility

In fact, public opinion on solar geoengineering reveals a global divide that mirrors broader patterns of climate vulnerability and responsibility.

Research published by SRM360 comparing public attitudes across 30 countries found that the Global South is more supportive of geoengineering than the Global North. In regions already experiencing severe climate impacts, the abstract risks of atmospheric intervention pale beside the immediate reality of deadly heat waves, droughts, and storms.

In wealthy Western nations like the UK and Germany, people express moral concerns about geoengineering as a technological fix for a problem they helped create. "People might think, no, no, no, that's the wrong way to solve the problem that we created. We're responsible for doing it the right way," Irvine notes.

The Global South feels no such moral obligation. Having contributed minimally to historical emissions while bearing the brunt of climate impacts, populations in vulnerable regions may see geoengineering as a reasonable response to a crisis they didn't create.

Age also plays a role. "The global South is generally younger," Irvine observes, and younger populations tend to be more open to technological solutions. Economic optimism matters too, regions experiencing rapid development are more likely to embrace technological fixes.

The termination shock

Solar geoengineering and SAI are, of course, not without risks. One is what Neal Stephenson called "termination shock", the title of his novel. What happens when geoengineering suddenly stops due to political upheaval, technical failure, or international conflict?

Without the artificial cooling mask, accumulated greenhouse gases would assert their full warming potential. One scientist has compared this to suddenly opening a giant, global-sized oven door.

But there's a second risk: that SAI deployment itself could disrupt global weather patterns during operation, potentially causing monsoon failures and crop disasters. What happened in 536 CE is a particularly catastrophic example of this.

Song also points out that we already face the first type of termination shock, thanks to the emission of 73 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide from fossil fuels. "If the world halted fossil-fuel burning overnight, we'd lose that cooling almost immediately," Song explains. "Model studies show global temperatures would jump toward 1.8-1.9°C above pre-industrial within a year."

In particular, Song pointed us to an Economist piece saying that warming in India would be much worse, were it not for the pollution.

Unlike accidental pollution, intentional solar radiation management could be "planned and tapered," ramping down in sync with decarbonisation efforts to avoid the cliff-edge rebound that stopping fossil fuels would create.

The moral hazard of cooling credits

Aviation faces an impossible trilemma: maintaining growth, achieving net-zero targets, and avoiding economic collapse. The industry accounts for roughly 3% of global emissions, but those emissions are rising and are notoriously difficult to eliminate.

Sustainable aviation fuels remain expensive and limited in supply. Electric and hydrogen aircraft face technological constraints that will take decades to overcome for long-haul flights. DAC costs around $500 per tonne. Against this backdrop, Make Sunsets' cooling credits at $10 per tonne represent a seductive economic alternative.

The aviation industry's net-zero commitments become meaningless if cheap atmospheric cooling provides an easy alternative to eliminating emissions.

Song rejects the moral hazard argument, "cooling credits buy time for hard-to-abate sectors to reach net-zero. They don't reduce anyone's obligation to decarbonise."

The aviation industry's unique role

But airlines wouldn't just be customers for cooling credits, they would likely operate the infrastructure needed for large-scale stratospheric aerosol injection.

According to research from SRM360, a fleet of modified commercial aircraft such as Boeing 777s could deploy the millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide needed for planetary cooling. The technical requirements are well understood: planes would need sulphur dioxide tanks, specialised nozzles, and modified plumbing systems.

And so, perhaps the real issue isn't choosing between managed geoengineering and unmanaged climate chaos, but the urgent need to build international frameworks for atmospheric intervention now, before desperation drives uncoordinated action.

The aviation industry, which could both deploy and benefit from these technologies, may find itself at the centre of humanity's most consequential decision: whether we're wise enough to develop governance systems for planetary climate control, or whether we'll let market forces and climate desperation decide our atmospheric future.

For aviation, this represents both an opportunity and a responsibility that the industry has barely begun to acknowledge, let alone address.

TL;DR: Geoengineering is moving from fiction to reality — and aviation may be the delivery system. Our new explainer breaks down the science, risks, and what it means for airlines.

In 1991, a volcano in the Philippines cooled the planet.

Mount Pinatubo blasted more than 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, scattering sunlight and lowering global temperatures by around 0.5°C for two years.

It was one of the most dramatic examples of unintended climate engineering in history — and it has become a template for one of the most controversial climate ideas in the world today.

That idea is solar geoengineering: the deliberate injection of aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. Once confined to science fiction, the concept is now the subject of real-world experiments, academic research, and political debate.

And aviation may sit right at the centre of it.

Same planes, new mission

The leading proposal for solar geoengineering — Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) — relies on aircraft.

Studies suggest modified commercial jets, such as Boeing 777s, could be equipped with sulphur tanks and high-altitude nozzles. Even business jets could be adapted: one recent paper estimated a conversion cost of under $30 million.

This makes aviation not just a bystander but the likely delivery mechanism for planetary-scale cooling. The altitude, the engineering, and the global reach already exist. In other words, climate control could become an airline service.

However, the risks are substantial. Poorly managed interventions could disrupt rainfall patterns, destabilise monsoons, or trigger what’s known as “termination shock” — a sudden spike in temperatures if deployment stops.

For aviation, the implications cut both ways. Airlines might one day operate the aircraft needed for stratospheric injections. But the industry also faces the moral hazard: if cooling credits cost $10 per tonne compared to $500 for direct air capture, what incentive remains for deep decarbonisation?

This tension makes aviation central to the geoengineering debate — both as an enabler and as a sector with a great deal at stake.

Why this explainer

Solar geoengineering is a fast-moving, divisive field that aviation cannot ignore.

While major companies in the direct air capture (DAC) industry race to build ever-larger facilities, chasing economies of scale, a Dutch startup is taking the opposite approach.

Eindhoven-based Carbyon's machines are deliberately small, deliberately modular, and deliberately fast. They complete CO2 capture cycles in 130 seconds, compared to hours for some competitors in this space.

It's a bet that speed and flexibility will matter more than size when aviation desperately needs carbon sources for sustainable fuels. The company aims to provide the necessary quantities at a competitive cost.

"Our mission is to capture billions of tonnes of CO2 from the air," says Tessel Jarigsma, Carbyon's COO, describing their ambition to scale through manufacturing rather than facility size.

Many traditional DAC systems operate in batch cycles lasting several hours. Carbyon's technology reaches 90% saturation in just minutes, enabling continuous operation. Each small unit measures 60cm by 12cm — "the size of your upper leg," as Jarigsma describes it — and can capture 500 kilograms of CO2 annually.

With plans to open its first pilot facility in Eindhoven in September, the company targets costs under €100 per tonne of CO2, significantly lower than current industry averages of €500+ per tonne.

A technology provider's business model

Unlike vertically integrated competitors such as Climeworks, Carbyon positions itself as a technology supplier rather than a project operator. "We are technology providers," Jarigsma emphasises, comparing their role to that of established industrial equipment companies like Topsoe or Siemens Energy.

"I'm talking to a hydropower company in India. They just basically get it for free," she notes, giving an example of the kind of customer that could achieve these low costs.

The modular design enables this approach. "The beauty of DAC [is] you can do everywhere," Jarigsma notes. "There's no need to transport your CO2. You just put your DAC machine wherever you need it."

This means e-fuels companies serving the aviation and maritime sector and needing a cheap source of CO2 could put Carbyon’s machines where renewable energy is plentiful and affordable. Carbyon’s modular structure means that you can start small and add additional units as needed.

Alternatively, these units could be deployed near airports without requiring massive dedicated facilities.

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The great DAC debate

Direct air capture remains one of the most contentious topics in climate technology. Critics point to three major pitfalls:

1. It enables continued fossil fuel use by providing a technological "out."

2. The costs will never reach commercially viable levels.

3. The massive energy requirements could be better deployed elsewhere.

In our conversation, Jarigsma tackled each criticism. On the moral hazard argument, she points out that atmospheric CO2 levels require active removal regardless of future emissions policies."Even if the fossil industry would immediately stop, we need to clean up the air to reverse climate change."

The cost criticism draws a historical analogy: "Every new technology will have a cost down curve. Whether it's the first plane that ever flew, or solar panels, or hydrogen, or whatever. Cost down only happens through adoption."

Finally, Jarigsma framed the whole debate in terms of waste management.

As a result, Jarigsma says that "CO2 has become an ugly thing because it created climate change. But CO2 is actually a very, very valuable molecule... if we treat it the right way."

On energy usage, Jarigsma acknowledges the legitimate concerns while questioning priorities: "It's very easy to criticise something that is sort of intangible, when we're using a lot of electricity to be in our data centres. All of that stuff is using so much more electricity."

Industry validation

Carbyon has secured funding from investors including Siemens Financial Services, Lowercarbon Capital, Omnes Capital, Bouygues, ISAI Build Venture and Global Cleantech Capital. In July 2025, it also became the first DAC company to receive a Dutch government DEI+ subsidy.

The company plans to deploy its first outdoor demonstration unit at High Tech Campus Eindhoven in September 2025, followed by commercial deployment to customers, including pilot partners, for field testing.

For aviation, technologies like Carbyon's represent one pathway to more cost-competitive, sustainable synthetic fuels, if they can deliver on their cost and scale promises.

A black Mustang hurtles across the desert. "FUEL FROM THE AIR," the screen proclaims, as if it were a film opening. But this isn’t fiction. It’s the homepage of Prometheus Fuels, a startup with seemingly outlandish claims that is equal parts revolutionary tech and Hollywood spectacle.

With electric guitar riffs scoring their demo videos and CEO Rob McGinnis claiming they’ll undercut fossil fuels without subsidies, Prometheus is not just selling fuel, it’s outlining one of the most entertaining stories in climate tech.

That storytelling sets them apart.

While other companies talk about decarbonisation pathways and regulatory requirements, Prometheus offers pulp sci-fi fantasy: Modular reactors named after Faraday; bold, colourful storytelling; classic cars and Harley-Davidsons powering through Californian towns and deserts.

But underneath the audacious narrative, what’s the technology? And do the company’s eye-opening claims stand up to scrutiny?

Air, water, electricity, and ambition

Prometheus is fundamentally a synthetic fuels company. But according to Rob McGinnis, his company stands alone in doing things very differently.

Referring to other companies in this sector, he told us:

He was referring to the standard playbook under which most Power-to-Liquid (PtL) fuels companies operate. They start with green hydrogen made from renewable energy with CO₂ and then process it via the Fischer-Tropsch method, a technology that recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. This energy-intensive process results in fuel typically 5x or so more expensive than the fossil fuel equivalent.

Prometheus integrates direct air capture with their proprietary "Faraday reactor", a hydrocarbon electrolyser that produces hydrocarbons directly rather than just hydrogen or carbon separately. The key breakthrough is coupling these systems to avoid the expensive CO2 desorption step that traditional direct air capture requires.

The system operates at room temperature and atmospheric pressure using plastic stacks rather than expensive alloys or platinum group metals, making it significantly cheaper than high-pressure, high-temperature conventional processes.

The technology is designed to be modular and location-independent. McGinnis explained that their approach fundamentally differs from competitors who need billion-dollar centralised plants: "The great thing about our approach, this modular approach, where it's all stack-based, is that once you have a full-size stack built exactly the way you're going to build it... anything else you do is just packaging.

This modularity enables geographic flexibility that McGinnis sees as a crucial advantage. Prometheus can deploy wherever solar resources are cheapest.

Here, it’s worth noting that modularity is not unique to Prometheus. It’s core to how the German e-fuels company INERATEC works. They recently opened up Europe’s largest PtL fuel plant outside Frankfurt.

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'It's laughable': The critics weigh in

Not surprisingly, Prometheus has its share of sceptics who cast doubt on the company's claims.

In 2022, MIT Technology Review published a critique titled "This $1.5 billion startup promised to deliver clean fuels as cheap as gas. Experts are deeply skeptical."

The piece raised fundamental questions about whether Prometheus could achieve the dramatic cost reductions it claims. "It's laughable," Eric McFarland, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara, told MIT Technology Review. "It's the tech bubble again. People are putting money into lots of things that ultimately won't ever work, and this is one of them."

The MIT article challenged multiple aspects of Prometheus's business model. It questioned the company's solar cost assumptions. The piece also alleged that some prominent climate-focused venture capital firms had not invested in the company, with sources suggesting the cost and technical claims seemed "highly unlikely."

Finally, the article questioned chemistry claims. Sean McCoy, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary, told MIT Technology Review that while the process was "technically possible," academic groups working on similar electrochemical processes for converting CO2 to alcohol had produced "very low yields."

McGinnis defended his company against these criticisms, telling MIT Technology Review that sceptics "would be convinced if they had access to our data, models, and methods." He explained that the company had limited information sharing to protect intellectual property, particularly with venture firms that had invested in competing companies, asking such firms to rely on technical due diligence from third-party consultants instead.

He also emphasised the inherent doubts that any disruptive startup faces: "Startups just face scepticism as a base layer... for us to go and say, hey, we're going to do this for price parity, which means we're going to be one-seventh or one-eighth the cost of all our competitors... that strikes people as being miraculous."

Why Maersk and BMW are betting big

It’s worth noting that McGinnis is a Yale-trained engineer with a track record in water technology and membrane development. Before founding Prometheus, he co-founded desalination startup Oasys Water and nanotechnology company Mattershift, demonstrating experience in bringing advanced materials to market.

Meanwhile, sophisticated industrial players like Maersk and BMW, with their own technical teams that would have done a reasonable amount of homework, have invested in Prometheus and sit on the company’s board. This suggests that the technology at least merits consideration.

According to McGinnis, “methanol initially is a really good, versatile molecule because it can be turned into gasoline, diesel and jet."

This versatility matters enormously for Maersk, which has been pioneering methanol-powered container ships and needs reliable supplies of carbon-neutral fuel. The shipping company has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and has already launched several methanol-powered vessels, making Prometheus's promise of cost-competitive green methanol particularly attractive.

In the aviation industry, meanwhile, both Boom Supersonic and American Airlines have signed offtakes.

The moment of truth

Perhaps McGinnis really has stumbled upon something revolutionary that the entire e-fuels industry has missed — a way to bypass the constraints that have made synthetic fuels prohibitively expensive.

Or perhaps the critics are right, and Prometheus is simply the latest in a long line of startups promising to solve intractable chemistry problems with venture capital and marketing prowess.

McGinnis, though, stressed at the end of our interview: "I just want to emphasise that it really is a distinct technology. It's not like everybody else."

Time will tell. For now, the black Mustang keeps racing through the desert, fuelled by ambition and questions that commercial-scale deployment will ultimately answer.

Imagine travelling to the airport in your Uber Green. Along the way, towering structures line airport approach roads. Not cell towers or billboards, but artificial trees that breathe. Each one captures carbon dioxide and releases oxygen equivalent to 300 mature trees, while its green glow signals active air purification in progress.

Franklin Francis from the start-up Carbelim wants installations like this to become commonplace at airports within the decade.

Francis, who is Executive Vice President at the company, believes that Carbelim’s offerings provide airports with a richer and more innovative sustainability solution than simply relying on traditional carbon offsets and / or renewable energy.

The technology

Carbelim's approach centres on microscopic microalgae that, according to the startup, perform photosynthesis 400 times more efficiently than trees. The company integrates these biological systems into building facades, standalone towers, and modular units that can be customised for different environments.

"Eighty per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes from oceans, and algae are the major contributors," explains Francis, who heads the company's Abu Dhabi operations.

The systems are designed for energy efficiency, with each unit consuming less power than a standard LED television. Solar panels can be integrated to make installations self-sufficient, particularly appealing for outdoor applications where grid connection might be challenging.

The resulting captured biomass doesn't go to waste. Carbelim converts it into commercial products, including vegan omega oils, fish feed, and biogas in colder climates. This circular economy approach aims to make the systems economically viable rather than just environmental add-ons, with facade installations priced at around $800 per square foot, while smaller standalone units start at $10,000.

The startup, which received $350k in pre-seed funding, was recently a semi-finalist at MIT Solve's 2025 Global Challenge and won recognition as a top-10 startup in the MENA region at Abu Dhabi's World Future Energy Summit.

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Industry context and challenges

Francis envisions multiple deployment scenarios for airports, each customisable to specific requirements.

At one major airport, Carbelim recently proposed installing its systems in smoking lounges, enclosed spaces where air quality challenges are most acute. According to the company's airport prospectus, "Each smoking room can have air quality that's 50 times worse than busy city streets," with PM2.5 concentrations reaching 532.5 µg/m³: 23 times higher than WHO standards.

Beyond indoor applications, airports offer ideal real estate for larger installations. Those towering "mechanical trees" could line car parks and approach roads, while modular bus shelter designs could enhance passenger waiting areas. Francis describes recent discussions in São Paulo about producing 100 bus shelter installations, each providing the environmental impact of 30 trees.

The real-time monitoring capabilities may prove equally valuable. As airports increasingly report detailed environmental metrics to stakeholders, having comprehensive air quality data from multiple locations provides both operational insights and powerful marketing material.

Yet challenges remain significant. Bloomberg estimates 800 companies now operate in the broader carbon capture space, while biological systems introduce maintenance and regulatory hurdles in aviation's safety-critical environment. The technology remains in pilot phase, with Carbelim actively seeking demonstration partners and expecting to complete product development within the next few weeks.

Looking forward

The Middle East's growing investment in green technology adds another dimension, with regional airports seeking to demonstrate climate commitment following the COP28 legacy goals established when the UAE hosted the UN climate conference.

The real test will come in pilot deployments, where theoretical performance meets operational reality. However, for airports seeking both environmental impact and visible sustainability leadership, Carbelim's living systems offer an intriguingly innovative approach.