Chemists Introduce Roadmap for Fossil-Free Refineries by 2050

Two chemists from Utrecht University have presented a visionary roadmap in a Nature article, demonstrating how oil refineries could be reinvented to become completely fossil-free by 2050, significantly contributing to a carbon-neutral society. The researchers, Eelco Vogt and Bert Weckhuysen, propose a refinery that is entirely carbon-neutral, using order-of-magnitude calculations for a single refinery plant in Europe to show the necessary energy, materials, and resources, as well as the related financial and political constraints.