[TheForge] Re: Natural gas burner? OT by now

[schade at acegroup.cc]

May 14, 2006
Military Plans Tests in Search for an Alternative to Oil-Based Fuel

By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, May 13 — When an F-16 lights up its afterburners, it 
consumes nearly 28 gallons of fuel per minute. No wonder, then, that of 
all the fuel the United States government uses each year, the Air Force 
accounts for more than half. The Air Force may not be in any danger of 
suffering inconveniences from scarce or expensive fuel, but it has 
begun looking for a way to power its jets on something besides 
conventional fuel.

In a series of tests — first on engines mounted on blocks and then with 
B-52's in flight — the Air Force will try to prove that the American 
military can fly its aircraft by blending traditional crude-oil-based 
jet fuel with a synthetic liquid made first from natural gas and, 
eventually, from coal, which is plentiful and cheaper.

While the military has been a leader in adopting some technologies — 
light but strong metals, radar-evading stealth designs and 
fire-retardant flight suits, for example — any effort to hit a 
miles-per-gallon fuel efficiency rating has taken a back seat when the 
mission is to haul bombs farther and faster or push 70-ton tanks across 
a desert to topple an adversary. (The Abrams tank, for example, gets 
less than a mile per gallon under certain combat conditions.)

"Energy is a national security issue," said Michael A. Aimone, the Air 
Force assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics.

The United States is unlikely ever to become fully independent of 
foreign oil, Mr. Aimone said, but the intent of the Air Force project 
is "to develop enough independence to have assured domestic supplies 
for aviation purposes."

By late this summer, on the hard lake beds of the Mojave Desert, where 
the Air Force tests its most secret and high-performance aircraft, a 
lumbering B-52 is scheduled to take off in an experiment in which two 
of the giant bomber's engines will burn jet fuel produced not from 
crude oil but from natural gas. The plane's six other engines will burn 
traditional jet fuel — just in case.

The Air Force consumed 3.2 billion gallons of aviation fuel in fiscal 
year 2005, which was 52.5 percent of all fossil fuel used by the 
government, Pentagon statistics show. The total Air Force bill for jet 
fuel last year topped $4.7 billion.

Although the share of national energy consumption by the federal 
government and the military is just 1.7 percent, every increase of $10 
per barrel of oil drives up Air Force fuel costs by $600 million per 
year.

Mr. Aimone said that if the synthetic blend worked, plans called for 
increasing its use in Air Force planes to 100 million gallons in the 
next two years.

Air Force and industry officials say that oil prices above $40 to $45 
per barrel make a blend with synthetic fuels a cost-effective 
alternative to oil-based jet fuel.

Fuel costs have doubled since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and crude 
oil prices since Hurricane Katrina have remained above $60 a barrel.

The Air Force effort falls under a directive from Defense Secretary 
Donald H. Rumsfeld to explore alternative fuel sources. Under the plan, 
the Air Force has been authorized to buy 100,000 gallons of synthetic 
fuel.

Ground experiments are scheduled to begin in coming weeks at 
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, followed by test flights at 
Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Although the Air Force is leading the project, it is working with the 
Automotive Tank Command of the Army, in Detroit, and the Naval Fuels 
Laboratory, at Patuxent River, Md.

The research and tests on synthetic fuel would ultimately produce a 
common fuel for the entire military, Air Force officials said.

The initial contract for unconventional fuel for the tests will be 
signed with Syntroleum Corporation of Tulsa, Okla., which has provided 
synthetic fuel for testing by the Departments of Energy, Transportation 
and Defense since 1998.

John B. Holmes Jr., Syntroleum's president and chief executive officer, 
said his firm would sell the Air Force its synthetic fuel for testing 
"at our cost, and we may be losing a little bit."

Neither Mr. Holmes nor the Air Force would provide cost estimates for 
the experimental fuel deal in advance of signing a final contract, 
expected in coming days.

Air Force officials have acknowledged, however, that the cost per 
gallon of the test fuel will be expensive.

Syntroleum can produce 42 gallons of synthetic fuel from 10,000 cubic 
feet of natural gas. The raw materials cost about $70.

If the military moves ahead with using the synthetic fuels, the 
Syntroleum technology could be used by factories elsewhere to produce 
the same 42 gallons of fuel from just $10 worth of coal, Mr. Holmes 
said.

"The United States is essentially the Saudi Arabia of coal," Mr. Holmes 
said. "It can be mined relatively inexpensively. We really believe that 
one of the things we can do to help our country's energy needs is to 
use the abundance of coal reserves."

Mr. Aimone said the large plants needed to produce nonconventional 
fuels did not exist and would have to be designed and built by the 
industry.

But he added: "We believe there are economic incentives as we invest in 
this, and invest with the industry at large, because there are vast 
coal reserves in this country. The economic pressures of rising oil 
prices can be moderated by the price of coal."