Future Of Clean Energy: CO2 To Biofuel

Hi there,

Happy release day! Today we dive into the future of carbon capture and sustainable energy. Tune in here 🎧

I sit down with Greg Constantine, CEO and co-founder of AIRCO—a company turning carbon dioxide from a problem into a power source. Based in New York, AIRCO has raised over $100 million to propel its ambition: rewire the way we think about carbon, not as waste, but as a raw input for jet fuel, rocket fuel, and even consumer-grade ethanol.

The innovation ushers in a future where carbon emissions are transformed to be sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), used to create the energy infrastructure on Mars, and introduce modular carbon repurposing stations to decentralize energy for the military.

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My 5 Year Outlook:

• We’ll Make Rocket Fuel on Mars

  Circular and localized energy production for interplanetary colonies and travel.

• Fuel Production Will Go Modular and Tactical

  Biofuel stations on aircraft carrier, military bases, and remote islands.

• Carbon Will Become a Platform for New Products

  Why settle for just capturing CO2 when you can create key fuel and ethanol inputs.

Curious? Read on as I unpack each below 👇🏼

We’ll Make Rocket Fuel on Mars

AIRCO’s collaboration with NASA explores the bold idea of producing fuel for interplanetary missions using CO2 captured directly from the Martian air and hydrogen produced via electrolysis from subsurface water or ice.

This concept, known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), represents a fundamental shift in how we think about long-duration space travel. Instead of carrying all the fuel from Earth—a massively expensive and mass-limited proposition—future space missions could generate fuel on the planet they intend to leave. If you can produce fuel on Mars, you suddenly open the door to round-trip missions and permanent habitation.

NASA has been actively funding this work through its Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, signaling serious institutional belief in its feasibility. AIRCO is developing reactors small enough to be deployed in spacecraft cargo and robust enough to operate autonomously on another planet. This mirrors a wider trend in aerospace: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others are exploring how off-world resource utilization could create permanent infrastructure for exploration and habitation. It’s a vision where fuel is not just carried, but created beyond the edge of civilization.

Fuel Production Will Go Modular and Tactical

AIRCO’s work with the U.S. Department of Defense is driven by a sobering statistic: over 70% of U.S. military casualties in conflicts like Afghanistan were related to fuel transport.

To that end, AIRCO is building modular, container-sized systems that can generate synthetic fuel on-site using just carbon dioxide, water, and electricity. The company’s earliest systems were small enough to fit on a flatbed truck, and today the goal is complete portability: refineries that can be shipped to remote islands, military bases, or disaster zones and switched on like software.

AIRCO’s fully formulated sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), already tested with the U.S. Air Force, could become the cornerstone of flexible, carbon-based logistics networks around the world. This model of decentralized fuel production has implications far beyond defense. As nations and corporations look to secure energy independence, modular reactors like AIRCO’s could serve as on-demand energy assets, disconnected from global supply chains and pipelines.

The modular innovation marks a broader movement in climate and energy tech—from Bloom Energy’s solid oxide fuel cells to companies like Oklo and Radiant building small-scale nuclear reactors for military and industrial use. .

Carbon Will Become a Platform for New Products

While many carbon capture companies are focused on burying CO2 underground, AIRCO is focused on using it. Their approach is to use CO2 as a feedstock to create entirely new categories of products—from fuels to consumer-grade ethanol used in fragrances, spirits, and industrial solvents.

This shift from carbon storage to carbon utilization could redefine how we think about emissions. Instead of being a cost center, CO2 becomes an input into the supply chain—a feedstock for products that already exist and entirely new ones still to be imagined. For AIRCO, that has meant monetizing their R&D in creative ways, such as producing vodka and hand sanitizer with early prototypes while scaling toward industrial markets.

AIRCO is not alone. Companies like Twelve, LanzaTech, and Carbon Upcycling are all pioneering the idea that CO2 can be used as a platform to create everything from plastics to building materials. As green hydrogen becomes more available and AI accelerates material discovery, this approach could unlock entire new industries. It’s a future where emissions are no longer buried, but transformed—where carbon becomes the backbone of a new industrial era.

Time to power up!