A World Made from Air

For more than a century, hydrocarbons have been extracted from the ground to produce the fuels and materials that underpin modern civilization. AirPlant™ One demonstrates a new industrial reality: manufacturing them from air, water, and electricity.

By: Nicholas Flanders, Co-Founder and CEO

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The Industrial System We Inherited

Most people think of oil as a source of energy. In reality, oil is something far more foundational. It is one of the primary feedstocks from which modern civilization is constructed—in fact, over 95% of manufactured goods are derived from oil.

The fuels that move people and goods around the world are derived from hydrocarbons, but so too are many of the materials that define everyday life. Plastics, synthetic fibers, detergents, packaging, paints, adhesives, coatings, solvents, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and thousands of products all originate within the same hydrocarbon value chain. The modern economy is not simply powered by hydrocarbons; our physical goods are made from them.

For more than a century, the industrial system responsible for producing those hydrocarbons has operated according to a common logic. Carbon is extracted from the earth, transported through increasingly complex supply chains, refined into fuels and feedstocks, and transformed into the products that underpin modern life. This model enabled unprecedented economic growth and industrial development, but it also concentrated production around a finite set of geologic resources.

The Industrial Age was therefore built on two defining characteristics: extraction and geographic constraint.

Industrial power tended to accrue where hydrocarbons could be found. Nations rich in fossil resources developed strategic advantages. Countries without them relied on imports and global trade networks to secure the fuels and materials necessary for economic growth. The geography of energy shaped the geography of industry itself.

Today, however, advances in renewable electricity, carbon capture, and electrochemical conversion are creating the possibility of a fundamentally different industrial architecture—one in which hydrocarbons can be manufactured rather than extracted.

AirPlant One Marks a New Era for Industry

I am excited to announce that AirPlant One, Twelve's first commercial-scale production facility, is now online and producing E-Jet® sustainable aviation fuel and E-Naphtha™ from captured carbon dioxide, water, and renewable electricity.

AirPlant One represents the commercial deployment of a new generation of Power-to-X technology, which uses renewable power to transform abundant inputs into valuable fuels, chemicals, and materials.

At Twelve, we call this approach eManufacturing: advanced hydrocarbon production that converts carbon dioxide and water into hydrocarbons using electricity as a primary industrial input. By combining advanced electrochemistry with scalable industrial infrastructure, eManufacturing extends the promise of Power-to-X beyond energy and into the broader production of the fuels, feedstocks, and materials that underpin modern life.

I am excited to announce that AirPlant One, Twelve's first commercial-scale production facility, is now online and producing E-Jet® sustainable aviation fuel and E-Naphtha from captured carbon dioxide, water, and renewable electricity. At Twelve, we call this approach eManufacturing: a manufacturing system that converts carbon dioxide and water into hydrocarbons using electricity as a primary industrial input.

For our team, AirPlant One represents the culmination of years of scientific research, engineering innovation, and industrial development. More importantly, however, it marks the emergence of a new manufacturing paradigm that we believe will define the next chapter of industrial production.

eManufacturing applies renewable electricity to transform carbon dioxide and water into essential fuels, chemicals, and materials. Rather than relying on newly extracted fossil carbon, eManufacturing recycles carbon already present above ground and combines it with clean energy to create the molecular building blocks of our material world.

This distinction may appear technical, but its implications are profound. Throughout modern history, hydrocarbons have largely been products of geology. Their availability depended on where nature happened to concentrate carbon over millions of years. eManufacturing introduces a different possibility. It allows hydrocarbons to become products of manufacturing, produced wherever carbon dioxide, water, and renewable electricity are available.

As renewable power continues to scale globally, the production of fuels and materials can become increasingly tied to energy abundance rather than resource extraction. In doing so, eManufacturing has the potential to reshape not only how products are made, but where they are made.

AirPlant One is the first commercial demonstration of that vision.

eProducts: A New Category of Hydrocarbon Products

The products emerging from AirPlant One belong to a category we call eProducts: fuels, chemicals, and materials manufactured from captured carbon dioxide, water, and renewable electricity.

The first of these products is E-Jet® SAF, Twelve's power-to-liquid jet fuel. Aviation remains one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize because long-distance flight requires energy-dense liquid fuels. While electrification may play a role in portions of transportation, aviation will continue to depend on hydrocarbons for decades to come. E-Jet provides a pathway to produce those fuels without relying on newly extracted fossil carbon.

AirPlant One also produces E-Naphtha™, a critical chemical feedstock that sits at the beginning of countless industrial supply chains. Naphtha is used to manufacture plastics, synthetic fibers, packaging materials, solvents, and a wide range of chemical intermediates. Producing E-Naphtha from captured carbon dioxide demonstrates that carbon transformation can extend beyond energy and into the broader material economy.

These products are part of a growing portfolio that includes both E-Fuels and E-Made™ products.

E-Fuels are designed to serve sectors where liquid hydrocarbons remain essential, including aviation, maritime shipping, and heavy transportation. E-Made products extend the same manufacturing platform into chemicals and materials, enabling brands and manufacturers to incorporate recycled carbon into everyday products without compromising performance.

Taken together, these categories illustrate a broader point. The opportunity before us is not simply to create cleaner fuels. It is to establish a new way of manufacturing the fuels, chemicals, and materials that modern society depends upon.

A World Made from Air

Much of the public conversation surrounding climate and industry has focused on what must be reduced: fewer emissions, less waste, and lower dependence on fossil resources. Those objectives remain essential. Yet industrial progress has always been driven not only by what humanity chooses to eliminate, but by what it learns to build.

The significance of AirPlant One lies in its demonstration that another industrial model is possible.

The industrial infrastructure of the twentieth century was built around extracting carbon from beneath the earth and distributing it through global networks of refineries and chemical facilities. The industrial infrastructure of the twenty-first century may increasingly be built around capturing carbon already in circulation and transforming it into useful products through abundant renewable electricity.

If that transition occurs, the consequences will extend well beyond decarbonization. They will influence manufacturing competitiveness, energy security, supply-chain resilience, and the geography of industrial production. Regions with abundant renewable energy could become major centers of fuel and material manufacturing. Countries without fossil reserves could become producers rather than importers. Carbon itself could evolve from a waste product into a productive industrial resource.

AirPlant One is only the beginning of that journey. Yet every industrial transformation starts with the first commercial proof that a new system can work at scale.

This moment is about more than a single plant or technology—it's about advancing industrial systems for the next century.