Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, in partnership with Expander Energy Inc., FuelCell Energy, Nuclear Promise X, and St Marys Cement, have been awarded C$4.9 million (US$3.6 million) from Natural Resources Canada’s Clean Fuels Fund (CFF) and Energy Innovation Program (EIP) to support two new synthetic fuel projects.

While increasing the supply of low-carbon electricity, including nuclear generation and renewable energy options, will be critical to reaching Canada's net zero target, synthetic liquid fuels provide an immediate opportunity to make a meaningful reduction. These clean fuels are drop-in ready, providing an attractive opportunity for infrastructure investors.

Converting cellulosic biomass, such as forest residues, to synthetic diesel or Sustainable Aviation Fuel is an attractive and promising method to produce fuel that complies with North America’s ASTM D975 and Europe’s CEN 15940 diesel specifications. Further in the future, using carbon dioxide pulled directly from air, or by capturing it from industrial processes, greenhouse gases can be repurposed into a raw material (i.e., synthesis gas) to produce these synthetic fuels and other products.

When this process is powered by a clean source of energy, such as nuclear, it becomes a low carbon technology, that does not require changes to current vehicle designs or the associated transportation infrastructure.

Synthetic fuels aren’t talked about quite as much as renewables and other clean energy technologies, but they come with significant environmental benefits given their production method. There is no shortage of carbon sources that we can leverage to produce this fuel, whether it is through direct air capture or biomass—such as wood waste, municipal waste or even agricultural waste. The infrastructure already exists to deploy them, and they require no change to engine technology.

—Stephen Bushby, CNL’s Vice-President of Science and Technology

The first of the two projects will evaluate the economic viability of synthetic diesel production using biomass through high temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE). The full concept, named “e-Syn”, stems from using water electrolysis as part of an innovative, patent pending process for making Bio-Synthetic fuels developed by CNL and Expander. The project leverages Expander Energy Inc.’s technology for biomass gasification and bio-synthetic fuel production, and FuelCell Energy’s HTSE technology.

The resulting Bio-Synthetic fuel (Bio-SynDiesel and Bio-SynJet) will be composed entirely of carbon sourced from biogenic (atmospheric) sources and is expected to have very low Life Cycle Carbon Intensity. The project will evaluate the feasibility of suitable sites for the construction of a plant to produce 30 million liters per year of synthetic fuel using biomass and HTSE. A full front-end engineering design will then be performed on a selected site, with the aim to build several plants in the future nationally and globally.

For the second project, the team will conduct a related study to demonstrate, at an industrial facility, the process to produce synthesis gas directly from electrolysis of water and carbon dioxide (a process referred as co-electrolysis).

This process is the subject of recent patent applications by CNL (on behalf of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) and Expander Energy Inc. For this purpose, a 5 kWe electrolyzer from FuelCell Energy will be installed and tested at a facility owned by St Marys Cement, to use the carbon dioxide from the Canadian cement plant’s flue gas stream.

This project will be taking a carbon emission source, capturing it, and converting the CO₂ emissions into commercially useful synthesis gas. On successful completion of the pilot work at St Marys, the project will develop a conceptual design for a large-scale commercial facility that converts the synthesis gas into E-fuels such as Bio-SynDiesel and Bio-SynJet using Expander Energy Inc. and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s patent pending CETL production platform.

Both projects are being managed by Nuclear Promise X and commenced in December 2023. They are expected to be completed by end of the 2025 calendar year.