Amazon, partners invest in electrofuels company to decarbonize transportation sector

Infinium, a California-based electrofuels solution provider, has closed a funding round bringing together a consortium of investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), AP Ventures, Neuman & Esser, and the Grantham Environmental Trust.

As informed, the proceeds will be used to advance the development of commercial scale applications to decarbonize the transportation sector.

Infinium said that its proprietary technology can enable organizations to meet carbon reduction goals by accelerating the transition away from fossil-based fuels.

Specifically, the Infinium Electrofuels process converts renewable power into green hydrogen and then uses this green hydrogen and waste carbon dioxide to produce net-zero carbon fuels. These fuels may be used in today’s ship, plane and truck fleets without changes in infrastructure.

Nearly a quarter of global carbon emissions stem from the transportation sector, posing a significant challenge in industry efforts to reduce emissions. New business mandates that include corporate climate commitments and ESG investing are increasing the demand for low-carbon transportation alternatives. Other solutions, such as electrification, carbon offsets, carbon capture and hydrogen fuel cell technology are part of the solution but do not fully address transportation’s carbon reduction needs.

Infinium’s Electrofuels are drop-in replacements for traditional petroleum-derived products, enabling the commercial transportation industry and logistics operators to make an immediate impact on carbon reduction targets without capital and time-intensive upgrades to transportation infrastructure.

“We expect that current projects under development will be the first broad-scale utilization of electrofuels by commercial vehicles, harmonizing hydrogen utilization and waste carbon capture,” Robert Schuetzle, CEO of Infinium, commented.

“Infinium’s electrofuels solution has real potential to help decarbonize transport that carries heavier loads and travels long distances, including air and freight, as well as heavy trucks,” Kara Hurst, vice president of worldwide sustainability at Amazon, said.

“These investments are critical to making continued progress toward global carbon neutrality goals,” Yoshihiro Shiraiwa, President and CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, pointed out.

“We are proud to partner and collaborate with this group of industry leaders to build on the progress we have already made toward accelerating the energy transition.”

Infinium is developing commercial applications of its technology with strategic partners to build Electrofuels production plants, focusing first on markets where low-cost renewable power generation coincides with large CO₂ volumes.