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The World Ahead | By Invitation: Science & technology in 2025

Large-scale production of synthetic fuel is now feasible, argues the founder of Terraform Industries

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Illustration: Diego Mallo

By Casey Handmer, founder of Terraform Industries

What if we could make cheap fuel out of thin air? For more than a century, a bewildering variety of methods has been attempted to make drop-in replacements for fossil fuels. Such synthetic fuels could be used with existing energy, transport and industrial infrastructure, collectively worth over $100trn.

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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “The new economics of renewable energy”

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