My boy Gordon Lubold with the Christian Science Monitor has a
great story on the latest feat for greenies in Blue…
The US Air Force is experimenting with a synthetic fuel that could become a cheaper fuel-alternative for the entire US military and even commercial aviation, officials say.
As the cost of a barrel of oil approaches $100 and US reliance on foreign oil sources grows, the Air Force, the single biggest user of energy in the US government, wants to find a cheaper alternative. Air Force officials think they may have found it in a fuel that blends the normal JP-8 fuel, currently used for the military’s jet engines, with a synthetic fuel made from natural gas and liquid coal.
The 50–50 blend is less expensive between $40 to $75 per barrel and it burns cleaner than normal fuel. The synthetic fuel is purchased from US-based suppliers and then blended with the military’s JP-8 fuel.
“We’re making sure the Air Force is ahead of the curve so we can utilize this domestic resource instead of having to be both dependent on foreign sources and send dollars offshore instead of spending the dollars here in the US,” says Kevin Billings, a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force helping to oversee the initiative.
Last week, on the 104th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the Air Force flew a C-17 Globemaster III from Washington state to New Jersey, the first transcontinental flight using the synthetic fuel. The flight was an attempt to demonstrate that pilots could fly the plane, considered a “workhorse” of the Air Force fleet, using “syn-fuel” without degrading the performance of the plane’s engine.
The service hopes to have all its planes certified to run on the fuel within the next five years. And by 2016, the Air Force hopes to meet half their US demand for fuel using the synthetic blend, first used in the 1920s, but further developed during World War II.
So can we call the Air Force “tree huggers?” Or are they just pennie pinchers? Whatever…seems to me their experiments could have serious positive consequences for civilian air travelers like us.
– Christian
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Synthetic hydrocarbon fuel is not any “greener” than JP8 or any other type of av gas. The exhaust is still some combination of CO, CO2, NO2 & small amounts of nastier gases.
This is mainly an attempt to rely more on coal (of which we have massive amounts) instead of oil (which we don’t). Which seems a reasonable step to take while oil prices are still high. Efficiency and flexibility are sound goals for our military.
I hope the military never really tries to go “green”. Really going green would just mean using less efficient fuel sources (like ethanol), or just using less energy period. Going green entails a performance hit almost by definition.
I do hope this current religious enviro movement fades before it does too much damage to our economy and national security. Going green is more about theology and public piousness than serious thinking. It shows the risk of running policy according to religious doctrine.
Since we’re treehug’n today. Did the Air Force program attempt to obtain fuel sources from plants (ie. biodiesels), or was it strictly coal & gas?
“Leno
I thought that the Air Force was going “green” by grounding all of their f-15s.
I hope the air force succeeds. It will help save on costs. Does any one have the contact information for the synthetic fuel project?
There is nothing new to this. Germany produced much liquid fuel from coal using the Fischer-Tropf process. This is also currently used in South Africa by a large chemical conglomerate on an industrial scale and has been in use for decades. The economics are better due to the high price of oil but there is no ‘new’ technology here.
Bad headline.
Nothing in the article suggests that the motive for this is environmentalism. The motives are securing domestic fuel source and saving money.
The Air Force fought against Kyoto. They will not “go green” because it is impossible given the massive amount of pollution that the USAF must produce in flying so many large and high performance aircraft.
I feel better now. My first thought when I saw the post title was: “My eyes are going bad. that C-17 looks grey”.
But yeah, USAF is having to ground so many aircraft that it will have no choice but to save fuel by default. I hope some ace maintainer doesn’t suddenly discover a show stopper structural problem out of the blue with all those USAF 50 year old tankers. Yikes.
Yep defineately a bad title. ‘Alternative’ fuels are not ‘green’ fuels if they are fossil fuel derived.
It’s not even going ‘Greener’ as synthetic fuels would ultimately generate more CO2 and other crap than conventional kerosene oil.
It is possible to be ‘Greener’ by focusing on fuel efficiency when possible, such as on logistical planes, anything that loiters, minimizing contrails. Improving longevity of assets as well as recycleability of the unusable stuff would be big plusses.
Yeah I just have to side with the posters saying that this is far from “tree hugging”. For truly horrifying proof of this do a google image search on “open coal mine” and tell me if that is what you want for the large portion of middle America that contains the coal…
Having said that, it is kind of hard to run on afterburner using nothing but a solar panel :-)
In terms of domestic defense it *does* make a lot of sense to own all of your fuel in house, but man I hope we find a good alternative soon. Hydrogen/Oxygen mix engines with water as waste product seems like a good choice, but expensive…
Thank goodness they’re not going with ethanol which will actually hurt the environment as massive areas of land are devoted to corn production (and corn is an inefficient source of ethanol, by the way). I’ve read that as prices for corn-based products rise, the impact is carrying through the agricultural industry so that massive areas of the Amazon are being burned for crop production. “Green” and “ethanol” are oxymorons. Anyway, I’m just happy the AF has the sense not to go that route.
Nothing new here. Just an application of the Fischer Tropf process which has been in use since at least WW2. This process is also currently in use by a large South African conglomerate on an industrial scale for chemicl base production. The Germans used it extensively for synthetic fuel production as early as 1943. It’s just high gas prices that makes it worthwhile.
If you try very hard and split hairs, you could argue that synthesizing your own fuel is more ecologically friendly than tearing up ANWR for a couple barrels of black gold.
Pity hydrocarbons are such a convenient energy package, compared to hydrogen and nuclear.
Rix is correct.
The South African company is Sasol. During 1980-1982 I worked for Sasol on the project management team supervising the construction of the Sasol 2 & 3 coal-to-oil plants. As I recall,the plants produced a full range of liquid fuels including Jet A-1 and JP-4 for use by the SAAF amongst others.
Sasol later developed a gas-to-liquid process. As I understand it, fuel made from a GTL process burns cleaner (giving rise to the “greener” label) mainly because it contains fewer of the heavier hydrocarbon compounds that are inevitably present in fuel produced by distillation of crude oil. The heavier hydrocarbons are more likely to experience incomplete combustion and cause smokey particulate laden exhaust.
Not magic, just chemistry, but GTL plants are expensive and energy intensive and their economics are very dependent on the relative prices of natural gas and liquid fuels.
There IS something new here, as well as something green (not that I care, I’m a hawk, not a tree-hugger). The Fisher-Tropf process has been around for a long time, but what is new is the use of this specific fuel blend in an aircraft engine. Just because a car engine can run on it doesn’t mean you can use it for jet fuel. This is an advancement, if only a small one.
It’s purportedly cleaner burning, as well, which means its better for the environment than standard JP 8. It’s not powered by magical rays of sunshine that cheer you up when you’re feeling blue, but it may put less carbon into the air.
And we end the year with Christian in over his head yet again.
Read this, Christian:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/RalphPeters.shtml
Actually, if the fuel is captured from flared natural gas, it’s a win-win. There was an American company called Syntroleum that specialized in this process. Sasol has been involved in more of a coal to liquids process, although perhaps things have changed.
sglover,
What does any of that have to do with jet fuel? Nothing, that’s what. Anybody can post a random link to a crackpot’s unrelated blog. At least try to be like our spambot and post in Haiku. Make it interesting if you’re posting unrelated nonsense.
Woo-hoo! Haiku spambot returns on command!
So if crude is at $100 a barrel and this 50-50 blend of highly refined jet fuel and synthetic fuel is about $50 dollars a barrel then:
(jet fuel + synthetic fuel)/2 = $50 a barrel
jet fuel + synthetic fuel = 2 * $50 = $100
where jet fuel = $100 (but that’s really the crude price)
$100 + synthetic fuel = $100
synthetic fuel = $0 a barrel
Woo Hoo! We finally have the free energy we need!
The Fischer-Tropf process today is different in that the catalyst has been improved. The CO-2 produced in the process can be sequestered in our old oil fields and bring up some of the residual crude remaining. How about sequestering it in the oil shale fields? Maybe it could break loose some of that crude and enable the US to become a little less dependent on Arab, Chavez, or Canadian crude. Our problem is that if the Mid-east goes hot (WW111) we will be driven into the ground in very short order. All the tree-huggers will be in for a rude shock and drilling in ANWR or off the coast of Florida will seem like a non-existant jproblem of the past.
so if you actually read the article it says the synfuel (including the crude oil) is between $40 -$75 per barrel, which is def cheaper than $100 per barrel…..
idiots=)