TY  - JOUR
TI  - Economic feasibility of low-carbon ethylene, propylene and jet fuel production
Y1  - 2025/07//
AV  - public
VL  - 216
N1  - © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
N2  - Jet fuel and key chemical building blocks (e.g. ethylene) cannot easily be substituted with zero-carbon alternatives and remain interconnected in a low-carbon future. Fischer-Tropsch and methanol synthesis offer pathways toward large-scale production of low-carbon synthetic hydrocarbons. This paper estimates the future costs of low-carbon ethylene, propylene, and jet fuel via those routes with feedstocks of either biomass or electricity with captured CO2. It finds while biobased hydrocarbons could fall below 1.1 USD/kg, electricity-based hydrocarbons using atmospheric CO2, even with the optimistic views, result in 4 USD/kg for ethylene, 2.3 USD/kg for propylene and 2.9 USD/kg for jet fuel. Using industry-captured CO2 as the carbon source could cut production costs by 28 %, but its future availability is likely to be limited. Offsetting existing hydrocarbon industries through direct air carbon capture and storage is projected to be more economical compared to electricity-based hydrocarbons. This research highlights the necessity for transitioning to a net zero power system to reduce electricity prices. As these technologies each produce multiple products and their business cases depend on sales of all products, a coherent cross-sectoral strategy to incentivise low-carbon fuels and chemicals would be valuable to ensure that the overall production reflects demand throughout a low-carbon transition.
ID  - discovery10206563
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2025.115648
PB  - Elsevier
JF  - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
A1  - Kim, Seokyoung
A1  - Dodds, Paul E
A1  - Butnar, Isabela
KW  - Techno-economic analysis
KW  -  Synthetic fuels
KW  -  Green ethylene
KW  -  Fischer-tropsch
KW  -  Methanol synthesis
KW  -  Energy systems
ER  -