A.P. Moller – Maersk has announced that Maersk Growth, its venture capital arm, has made a leading investment in Prometheus Fuels, a Silicon Valley-based startup with a promising direct air capture technology to enable cost-efficient, carbon-neutral e-fuels for shipping.

From the announcement: The minority investment in Prometheus Fuels will support A.P. Moller – Maersk’s work to execute on the strategy to decarbonize marine operations.

Maersk expects several fuels to exist alongside in the future fuel mix and has identified 4 potential fuel pathways to decarbonization; biodiesel, alcohols, lignin-enhanced alcohols and ammonia.

The investment supports Maersk’s efforts with electrofuels which include alcohols produced from renewable energy. Along with biodiesel, alcohols including green methanol are feasible fuel technologies already today.

Morten Bo Christiansen, head of decarbonisation at A.P. Moller – Maersk, said: “Prometheus Fuels is developing a very exciting and innovative technology to produce carbon based electrofuels from direct air capture of CO2. Electrofuels are expected to play a key role for the decarbonisation of shipping and, if scaled successfully, Prometheus Fuels’ technology will address a key constraint for carbon-based electrofuels – namely the cost competitiveness of direct air capture.”

Prometheus Fuels is an energy startup developing tools to filter atmospheric CO2 using water, electricity, and nanotube membranes to produce commercially viable fuels. When powered by renewable electricity sources, e-fuels produced by such direct air capture methods do not contribute further emissions, making them carbon neutral.

In addition to Maersk, Prometheus has also received backing from American Airlines and BMW. In June 2020, BMW announced an investment of US$12.5 million into Prometheus Fuels. American Airlines has also agreed to purchase up to 10 million gallons of jet fuel produced by the firm.