As Madsen Pirie of this parish has pointed out, e-fuels seem like a useful solution to jet engines and air travel. As Tim Worstall of this parish has also pointed out they seem like a pretty good idea. Not that we need any more proof than that but we’ve got it all the same. In the recently released Tesla Master Plan 3 we find:

Longer distance flights, estimated as 80% of air travel energy consumption (85B gallons/year of jet fuel globally), can be powered by synthetic fuels generated from excess renewable electricity leveraging the Fischer-Tropsch process, which uses a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) to synthesize a wide variety of liquid hydrocarbons, and has been demonstrated as a viable pathway for synthetic jet fuel synthesis….

So, there we are then, done and dusted. Everyone from Plane Stupid to those mithering about how to get batteries into a transatlantic ‘plane can now go and do something more useful.

Technology for the win we might say.

One more thing though. Such e-fuel would - at least at this level of development - be more expensive than fossil derived. But it’s not obvious that flights would be more expensive. Because of course now that the fuel is net zero there is no justification for Air Passenger Duty, which would then have to go. Given that APD is in fact a little higher than the agreed Stern Review externality costs of CO2-e emissions that might well mean cheaper flights even as the fuel itself is more expensive.

Because of course they would lift the tax once the logic for its existence has disappeared, wouldn't they. Wouldn’t they?