Sustainable jet fuel production coming to Grant Co.
Twelve co-founder and CEO Nicholas Flanders, far right, announces the company’s plans to build a facility to manufacture more sustainable jet fuel in Moses Lake during the Paris Air Show Monday.
COURTESY PHOTO/WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
A Berkley, California-based company announced plans Monday to build a jet fuel manufacturing facility at a location on Wheeler Road, pictured.
MOSES LAKE — Groundbreaking is scheduled for early July for a new facility that its owners say will manufacture aviation fuel from hydrogen, carbon dioxide and electricity. Nicholas Flanders, co-founder and CEO of Berkley, California-based Twelve, announced the construction of the new facility Monday at the Paris Air Show, accompanied by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
“We have a groundbreaking next month,” said Richard Hanover, director of business development for the Port of Moses Lake Tuesday.
A press release from the Washington Department of Commerce said the groundbreaking is scheduled for July 11. The Twelve facility will be located on property the company purchased in December, formerly the site of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company’s sugar beet processing facility on Wheeler Road near the intersection of Wheeler and Road N NE.
The company will produce what it has named “E-Jet” fuel at the facility.
“That’s a sustainable aviation fuel,” Hanover said. “So they look at that (Wheeler Road) property more as an opportunity to get some production going for sustainable aviation fuel. Like a refinery.”
The facility will produce what the DOC press release called “commercial-scale” production.
“Twelve’s E-Jet fuel is produced using the company’s carbon transformation technology, which uses only renewable energy and water to transform CO2 into critical chemicals and materials conventionally made from fossil fuels,” the DOC press release said.
“Commercial scale production of E-Jet fuel is a major milestone in our mission of creating a world run on air,” Flanders said in the DOC release. “Washington is the perfect location for our facility, with its abundant renewable energy resources to power our carbon transformation process.”
Hanover said the construction phase of the project is projected to employ about 50 to 100 construction workers.
“Once that first phase is done, they’ll have 15 to 20 full-time, ongoing employees that will be working on the site. And then there will be additional phases depending on (sales),” Hanover said.
“The first customers to receive E-Jet fuel from the plant will be companies and airlines with which Twelve has existing partnerships, including Shopify, Alaska Airlines and Microsoft,” the DOC press release said.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.
