The walk to check-in looked like a filling station. AIRCO-branded fuel pumps lined the path from the parking area, and on the hill behind the check-in table sat a Humvee with AIRCO branding on it.

At check-in, every guest got a small glass vial of clear fuel. The card on the front read “This is diesel.” The back read “Made here. Made from CO₂.”

None of that was accidental. Every moment of the afternoon was designed to make one idea impossible to miss. We make fuel where it’s needed, and we’re now building the system that does it, here in Pennsylvania.

A new chapter for AIRCO

AIRCO began in a Brooklyn, New York lab with one question. Could carbon dioxide (CO₂) become a finished, drop-in fuel?

We’ve known the answer for a while now. Our fuel has powered aircraft, vehicles, and boats alongside government partners, and our fuel-production systems have logged about 20,000 operating hours.

What we hadn’t done yet was build those systems as a product. That’s what New Britain is for. For the first time, our research, engineering, operations, and manufacturing sit on one campus. This is now AIRCO’s primary manufacturing and integration hub. The first commercial AIRCO MAD Fuel System™ is being built here, and we expect our first deployment on a government site next year, 2027.

It’s the shift from proving a technology to producing one.

Why it matters

“As long as we’ve had fuel, it’s always worked the same way,” our Co-Founder and CEO Greg Constantine said in his opening remarks. “You find it in the ground, and you refine it somewhere far away, and then you transport it, and every stop along that transportation piece adds costs and adds vulnerability. What if you didn’t have to move that fuel at all? What if you could produce it exactly where it is needed?”

Every gallon made where it’s used is one fewer moved over an exposed route. That’s why so many of our government and defense partners were in the crowd. For them, fuel made at the point of need means shorter, safer supply lines.

The system we’re building

The AIRCO MAD Fuel System is a factory-built, modular e-fuel plant. It’s a standard four-container system that takes in power, water, and CO₂, and turns out finished fuel on-site: jet fuel, diesel, naval fuel, even rocket fuel.

Each system is designed to produce about 2,500 gallons per month at an average power of roughly 0.66 MW. To scale, you add systems. Four make about 10,000 gallons a month, and the design stays the same.

With MAD, fuel stops being a commodity you ship and becomes infrastructure you build where you need it.

A day that ran on our own fuel

We didn’t want guests to hear about the fuel. We wanted them to experience it.

The coffee trailer and the sound system both ran off a generator filled with AIRCO Diesel, made from CO₂ in the building behind the stage.

Before the program began, guests gathered to watch Nick Steinke, our Director of Government and Defense Programs, fill the Humvee’s tank with AIRCO diesel. It was the same fuel they were holding in their hands. Then Greg climbed behind the wheel for a live demonstration of a vehicle running on our fuel.

Inside the facility

Following a ceremonial ribbon cutting, guests were taken on tours of the facility to see our technology up close. Every tour ended the same way, with fuel being pulled live from the system.

Built in Pennsylvania

We chose Bucks County because it knows how to build things. We’re working with Bucks County Community College and Middle Bucks Institute of Technology to train and recruit welders, pipefitters, and other tradespeople who will help build MAD. Those workforce partners were there too, alongside local leaders and international visitors who came to see what this technology could mean beyond the U.S.

The ride

The afternoon ended where it began, at the Humvee. Guests climbed in for a short ride around the lot, making them among the first civilians to ride on fuel made from CO₂.

What comes next

Every system built in New Britain will be configured to the fuel its mission needs and shipped to where that fuel is used. The goal is simple: make fuel where it’s needed, instead of moving it there.

To our investors and partners: thank you for believing in this early. Thank you to our government and defense partners, and to the state and local officials who welcomed us to Pennsylvania. And to the AIRCO team: you built this, in every sense of the word. Thank you.

For a hundred years, fuel has been something you find, refine, and ship. Starting in New Britain, it’s something we build.

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