Technologie paliw z CO2 – opisy rozwiązań i badań

Cd. Sprawy Paliwo z CO2 w Lublinie w technologii MTG  Kilka dni temu opublikowałem w Salonie 24 post http://www.jaron.salon24.pl/115301,paliwo-z-co2-w-lublinie-w-technologii-mtg

The Soapbox has published an article that I submitted for their Business & Technology category. In the article I have a look at how Sasol is exacerbating climate change through its carbon dioxide-heavy projects. And how this company — and others in South Africa — should be taking the lead in devloping green and sustainable energy alternatives.

The following is a summary of the article taken from The Soapbox:

With our climate in crisis, Stefano Di Trapani exhorts South Africa to take the lead in developing green energy technology. He believes the country could deliver thanks to its vast rural areas to produce biofuels, smart young minds to develop new energy technology and world-class technology companies and university departments to stimulate idea innovation.

Click here for the full article.

** A Google search for “climate crisis energy technology” delivers the article in it’s top 10 results — I think that’s pretty cool.

One industry that’s received a boost by the advent of the “clean tech” movement is, perhaps surprisingly, a grand old American icon–the coal industry. As many have pointed out, the United States is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil–we have boatloads of the stuff buried throughout the American heartland. Coal backers, who include President Obama, are heralding new techniques that highlight “clean coal technology.”

One decades-old “clean coal” method in favor again converts coal to natural gas, or gasification. Privately-held Cambridge, MA-based GreatPoint Energy (http://www.greatpointenergy.com) calls its gasification technology hydromethanization and has a remedy for one of the major obstacles facing gasification–keeping the carbon dioxide produced in the process out of the atmosphere. GreatPoint plans to bury it, as outlined by CNET News (http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10216860-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20).

There are literally dozens of smallcaps involved in coal technology in one form or another. Five-year-old Henderson, NV-based Energy Quest Inc. (OTCBB: EQST.OB, http://syngasinternational.com), formerly Syngas International Corp., designs, builds and operates various gasification technologies for reforming coal and other “carbonaceous feed stocks.” One rub on Energy Quest, based on recent days anyway, is that it very, very rarely trades. You can buy a share for 20 cents. Denver-based Evergreen Energy Inc. (NYSEArca: EEE, http://evergreenenergy.com) doesn’t have that trading issue–it averages 1.4 million trades a day. The stock now sits at $1.02, off its high last June of $2.50. Formerly called KFx, Inc., Evergreen is a more traditional coal refining and production company but its K-Fuel process is designed to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal.

Los Angeles-based Rentech Inc. (Amex: RTK, http://www.rentechinc.com) provides technologies that use domestic resources to produce ultra-clean fuels. It has created a process, the Rentech Process, a derivative of the Fischer-Tropsch gasification process, that converts synthesis gas derived from coal and other products into liquid hydrocarbon products including clean diesel fuel, jet fuel and other fuel products. The Rentech Process is the basis of a joint development agreement with Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU, http://www.peabodyenergy.com), which calls itself the world’s largest private-sector coal company, to convert coal into ultra-clean transportation fuels. Rentech trades actively, about 560,000 shares daily, and is priced at 64 cents a share, off its 52-week high of $2.75 it reached last summer.

One other smallcap is a basic coal play, if you like coal companies mining in China. Seattle-based L&L International Holdings Inc. (OTCBB:LLFH.OB, http://www.lnlinternational.com) primarily operates a 1.5-square-kilometer mining operation in the Yunnan Province but it holds interests in an estimated 60 million tons of reserves. Now trading at 99 cents, it was as high as $2.45 earlier this year.

There has been a lot of disscussion around Fairbanks lately about the Coal To Liquids (CTL) plant proposed by FEDC using a Fischer-Tropsch process.  A report by Hatch Engineering was prepared that discusses the economics and possible environmental impacts of this plant.  Shortly after the relase of this report, a Fairbanks News Miner Story indicated that FEDC believes that this report supports the economic analysis of the earlier Fairbanks Energy Plan, even though the plant construction price increased by a factor of three.  In addition to the Hatch report, two other studies funded by the US DOE Arctic Energy Office have also been completed, the first considering Beluga coal to replace natural gas as a feedstock for the Agrium Plant in Keani, the second to covert coal to FT liquids at Healy.  FEDC has been working to obtain a $10M earmark through the Air Force to develop the engineering for the Fairbanks CTL project.  However, there has been a recent announcement of a meeting in Anchorage to discuss plans for a Fischer Tropsch pilot plant in Alaska organized by the Defense Energy Support Center, and it is not clear how this meeting might affect funding for the Fairbanks Project.

“The good news is that there is no need to build new nuclear power plants to provide for the projected energy needs of the future. Indeed, it would be possible, using other forms of electricity generation, to close down most of the existing nuclear reactors within a decade. Many kinds of alternative solutions are currently on the drawing board because of the extreme urgency of countering global warming. For instance, the conversion of coal to a synthetic fuel, which can be used for transportation and which would contribute much less to global warming than petroleum, is actively being championed by Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana.”

That’s a quote from the perhaps infamous Nuclear Power is Not the Answer. However, this post isn’t really a criticism directed at Caldicott, specifically. The bold is mine.

The production of synthetic of petroleum-like liquid hydrocarbon fuels through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis using coal as a feedstock is not environmentally sound at all, it is not an efficient use of energy resources and it is not at all a useful technology in the slightest degree to contribute towards the mitigation of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions from energy systems.

The first step in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of liquid fuel from coal is the reaction of coal, which is mostly carbon, with steam under elevated temperatures and pressures, to yield a mixture of gaseous carbon monoxide and hydrogen, known as synthesis gas. This requires mining the coal, adding water, and supplying a significant input of thermal energy, intrinsically reducing the efficiency with which the energy content of the coal can be utilised – where does the thermal energy come from?
From burning more coal?

C(s) + H₂O(g) –> CO(g) + H₂(g)

We may wish to consider the small amount of hydrogen, about 4% by mass in typical bituminous coal, giving the coal an empirical chemical formula of something like C₂H. However, the presence of this small amount of hydrogen in the coal makes essentially negligible difference, other than to marginally increase the H₂:CO ratio in the synthesis gas mixture.

2 C₂H(s) + 4 H₂O –> 4 CO(g) + 5 H₂(g)

It’s essentially the same as the previous reaction, above.

For the sake of simplicity, we might ignore, for now, the presence of sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, metals and heavier elements in the coal, and focus on the carbon content. One notable advantage of Fischer-Tropsch fuels, however, is that the sulfur content of the fuel can be removed altogether, resulting in a fuel, such as diesel fuel, with negligible sulfur content, and hence with negligible emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned.

At the heart of the Fischer-Tropsch process is the use of an appropriately engineered catalyst and reaction conditions to convert the synthesis gas mixture back into a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons with an average molecular weight and composition which is usable as a fuel for vehicles. Suppose, for example, that we’re interested in the production of petrol for passenger cars – however, you could apply the same analysis equally to diesel fuel, for example, or any other particular kind of liquid petroleum fuel that you’re interested in.

Typical liquid hydrocarbon fuels, such as petrol or diesel fuel, contain about 13-15% hydrogen by mass – significantly greater than any possible abundance of hydrogen in the coal. As such, the addition of additional hydrogen into the reaction is necessary. Suppose that we’re interested in the production of petrol for passenger cars. For the sake of simplicity we can say that octane, C₈H₁₈, is representative of the overall chemical composition of the petrol.

When the coal is reacted with water to form synthesis gas, the synthesis gas is then reacted with more steam in order to increase the H₂:CO ratio in the gas mixture, using water as the source of hydrogen, and producing carbon dioxide. This gas mixture can then be used to form the desired heavier hydrocarbons, using a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst.

25 C(s) + 25 H₂O(g) –> 25 CO(g) + 25 H₂(g)

9 CO(g) + 9 H₂O(g) –> 9 CO₂(g) + 9 H₂(g)

16 CO(g) + 34 H₂(g) –> 2 C₈H₁₈(g) + 16 H₂O(g)

Hence, we have an overall chemical reaction which is equivalent to this:

25 C(s) + 18 H₂O(g) –> 2 C₈H₁₈(g) + 9 CO₂(g)

Traditionally, we extract crude oil from the ground, fractionate and refine the oil into products like petrol, and run our cars on the petrol. If we combust 2 mol of octane in an engine, we’ve emitted 16 mol of fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, if that 2 mol of octane is produced from coal via a Fischer-Tropsch process like we’ve elucidated above, then 25 mol of fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, for the same amount of energy output in the car’s engine. Does this “contribute much less to global warming than petroleum”?

Absolutely not – quite the opposite, in fact.

Even if all the carbon dioxide created during the synthesis was captured at the Fischer-Tropsch plant, liquefied, and sent to geological sequestration – which assumes that geological sequestration of the enormous quantities of carbon dioxide associated with fossil fuel energy systems is practical, which is extremely doubtful indeed and is at best completely unproven – then, at best, assuming that none of the additional energy inputs into the process come from fossil fuels, then the combustion of the synthetic fuel is associated with exactly the same quantity of carbon dioxide emissions as the
combustion of fuel derived from petroleum.

Synthetic fuel production, as exemplified by the Fischer-Tropsch process, is not advocated for reasons of the mitigation of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions – it is advocated by people including but not limited to Brian Schweitzer as a means to contribute to a secure domestic supply of liquid petroleum for the United States – helping to end the United States’ present dependence on foreign oil.

Fischer-Tropsch chemistry provides a particularly attractive means to keep our petroleum-fuelled vehicles in operation, using abundant, ubiquitous and secure domestic supplies of coal, where the security of foreign oil supplies are threatened by strategic or geopolitical considerations – as was the case in Nazi Germany and in South Africa under Apartheid, where Fischer-Tropsch fuel production was first well developed on a large, industrial scale.

Of course, perhaps it’s also possible Schweitzer also wants to see Montana’s abundant lignite coal utilised for the production of these synthetic fuels – bringing income into the state, and perhaps helping to keep the coal extraction industry in business in a society where it is increasingly widely accepted that coal is our number-one environmental enemy. That’s no secret.

A US Air Force F-15 Eagle jet fighter refuels in midair. Find this exciting image on a poster or framed art print at The PatriArt Gallery.

The final weeks of August were big for the U.S. Air Force synthetic fuel program, according to officials with Air Mobility Command Test and Evaluation directorate here.

On Aug. 21, at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., the Air Force began conducting ground and flight tests with the KC-135 Stratotanker using an alternative fuel mix. The tests concluded with a KC-135 demonstration that included the first-ever aerial refueling using the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuel blend.

The tests were part of an on-going effort to certify all Air Force aircraft by 2010 to use the fuel blend, which mixes JP-8 fuel with fuel produced using the Fischer-Tropsch process — a process used to convert carbon-based materials into synthetic fuel.

According to Stephen Chicosky, AMC Test and Evaluation test manager, the KC-135 operational assessment was accomplished to assess the suitability of alternative fuel with that airframe.

During the KC-135 assessment, data was collected by Master Sgts. Don Lenhart, Fred Carver and Alecia Judd from the AMC Test and Evaluation Squadron at McGuire AFB, N.J.

Mr. Chicosky explained that to isolate the data, the assessment was completed in several stages.

During the first stage of the KC-135 assessment, he said the team established a baseline by collecting data on all four engines operating with JP-8 fuel only. After the initial data was collected, he said the JP-8 was removed from the No. 2 fuel tank, which was then filled with the synthetic fuel blend.

“The team ran the No. 2 engine on the ground and it operated fine,” added Mr. Chicosky. “There was no noticeable difference between the JP-8 fuel and the synthetic (blended) fuel.”

Following the ground testing, the KC-135 made its maiden flight using the synthetic fuel in the No. 2 engine only. The remaining three engines operated with JP-8 fuel. The flight was accomplished by an aircrew from the 336th Air Refueling Squadron at March ARB.

“The initial flight lasted about 50 minutes and the crew said they didn’t notice any irregularities in the No. 2 engine; they said the flight was ‘unremarkable,’ which is what we were looking for,” said Mr. Chicosky.

On Aug. 28, the team completed the third and final stage of the certification, flying the aircraft with all four engines operating on synthetic fuel only. Mr. Chicosky said the KC-135 departed March ARB with 60,000 pounds of synthetic fuel. During the flight, which lasted just over two hours, the aircraft burned approximately 24,000 pounds of synthetic fuel. The flight also included the first-ever aerial refueling using the synthetic fuel blend. During the in-flight refueling, the KC-135 crew transferred 17,000 pounds of synthetic fuel to an F-22 Raptor assigned to the 411th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, Calif.

“The entire [KC-135] flight was uneventful, in that the aircraft operated just as it would using JP-8 fuel,” explained Mr. Chicosky, who was on board the aircraft during the final flight. “It was a successful flight.”

In fact, he said, the entire certification process was a success.

“Everyone involved did an outstanding job,” added Mr. Chicosky. “Everyone worked together to ensure the KC-135 certification was a success.”

In addition to March ARB personnel, he said AMC also partnered with KC-135 engineers from Tinker AFB, Okla., and personnel assigned to the 77th Aeronautical System Wing and Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification Office at Wright-Patterson AFB.

Certification on the remaining AMC aircraft – including the C-5 Galaxy, KC-10 Extender and C-130 Hercules – will be completed by the end of this calendar year, according to AMC’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Donald R. Erbschloe.

Dr. Erbschloe said what the Air Force is doing to certify its fleet to use the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic blend is only one part of a host of actions that need to occur before alternative fuel becomes a reality. He said one of the key issues concerning the alternative fuel effort is “supply and demand.”

“A critic may argue that it is all well and good to certify our Air Force aircraft, but if the alternative fuels are either not available or too costly, what good is it?” Dr. Erbschloe explained. “Well, one major achievement – which was accomplished during the C-17 certification process (October 2007) — was to develop a thorough, structured set of procedures to validate and test the efficacy of any alternative fuel — not just Fischer-Tropsch — in our Air Force systems. All of this leads to improved energy security for our Air Force.”

He said those procedures — the Military Specification Handbook for Alternative Fuels — is the process the Air Force will use when it tests biofuels and other future potential energy sources. However, Dr. Erbschloe added that the Air Force can’t and shouldn’t do this by itself.

“The answer is that a number of players – the U.S. fuel industry, government, other major fuel consumers — all need to work together to produce both the supply and demand to make this a viable and affordable alternative,” Dr. Erbschloe said.

The command’s chief scientist said synthetic fuel may be expensive now, but it could cost significantly less than that produced from oil at its current price if it is mass-produced.

He also said the Air Force will continue to learn and improve its alternative fuel methods and tools as the Air Force fleet certification is completed. “And we’ll be better prepared, more capable and, hopefully, quicker when we consider other alternative fuels to use in the future,” added Dr. Erbschloe.

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Birds of Prey

An F-22 Raptor and an F-15 Eagle fighter jet of the US Air Force patrol the Alaskan coastline along Prince William Sound. Both USAF combat aircraft are assigned to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. Find the “Birds of Prey” on calendars, posters, and framed art prints at The PatriArt Gallery.

The F-22 Combined Test Force reached another milestone as an Edwards F-22 Raptor performed aerial refueling using a synthetic fuel.  It is the first time an Air Force aircraft refueled mid-air using an alternative jet engine fuel.

The test was the culmination of Edwards test points in certifying the F-22’s use of the fuel, a 50/50 mix of JP-8 jet fuel and a natural gas-based fuel.

“Our goal was to complete the test plan and to support the certification,” said Maj. Drew Allen, 411 FLTS chief of standardization and evaluation and also the test pilot. “We wanted to prove that there was no negative effect in performing the aerial refueling using the synthetic fuel.”

To prove this, a KC-135 Stratotanker from March Air Reserve Base, Calif., dispensed the fuel to the F-22 using a standard refueling process.

“No modification or changes were made to either aircraft,” said Major Allen. “We just wanted to prove that there is no adverse effect in dispensing the fuel.”

First Lt. Paul Mantegna, 411th FLTS propulsion engineer, said F-22 Combined Test Force officials,  in conjunction with those at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Pratt and Whitney, and Honeywell, have been preparing for the testing.

“We’ve been in works for a couple of months now doing ground and auxiliary power unit runs to make sure all the aircraft’s subsystems can run without complications,” Lieutenant Mantegna said.

The test was done as part of the secretary of the Air Force’s initiative to certify the entire fleet on synthetic fuel, an effort to lessen dependence on foreign oil.

Beginning with a 15,000-foot, afterburner-assisted vertical climb, then climaxed by a four-minute supersonic dash from Columbus to Dublin, Robins Air Force Base officials put the historic finishing touches Wednesday on the use of synthetic fuel in an F-15 fighter aircraft.

The afternoon flight was a carbon copy of Tuesday’s test. Both proved that the high performance fighter will perform normally when powered by a 50-50 mix of traditional JP-8 jet fuel and a synthetic made from natural gas.

It was the Air Force’s – and the world’s – first test of a supersonic fighter using the synthetic fuel. The fuel mix already is certified for use on much larger B-52, B-1 and C-17 aircraft.

Read the entire article at the Macon Sun News

F-15 Eagle

Get close up with the F-15 Eagle. Find the 2009 calendar print, the poster, or the framed art print today at the PatriArt Gallery

An aviation first was accomplished when an F-15E Strike Eagle flew from Robins Air Force Base (Georgia) Aug. 19 using an alternative fuel.

Engineers from the 830th Aircraft Sustainment Group, maintainers with the 561st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and pilots from the 339th Flight Test Squadron joined with the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification office for the first airborne test of the F-15 using a 50-50 mix of JP-8 jet fuel and a natural gas-based synthetic fuel.

According to Maj. Dan Badia, one of the pilots for the test flight, it was just another day at the office.

“You could have had JP-8 in there and I wouldn’t have known the difference,” the major said.

Ryan Mead, an F-15 fuels engineer, said he was pleased with the flight test because for all practical purposes the aircraft functioned in the same range it would have with the JP-8 jet fuel. Mr. Mead said he expects the jet to be certified on the fuel as a result of the test flights.

Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification office, said the accomplishment demonstrates that the fuel is safe for operational use and does not decrease performance of a high-performance aircraft.

The test was done as part of a direction from the Secretary of the Air Force to certify the entire Air Force fleet on synthetic fuel by 2011.

Amanda Creel (AFPN)

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal finally reported that the USAF is converting its fleet to synthetic fuels. The subject of the article is the March test flight of a B1 on 50-50 syngas/JP8.

I say finally because this blog reported the flight in March, shortly after it happened. (See it here.) In that post, I made mention of the fact that the AF intends to certify all its aircraft by 2011, and has already certified the C-17, B-52 and B1.

They chose a 50/50 blend because the FT syngas burned too clean, and the existing jet engines were optimized to burn the existing jet fuel blends, which are “dirtier”. This is a point missed by WSJ, who looked at the carbon emissions of raw coal and assumed that FT fuel was the same. It is not the cleanliness of FT that keeps it from production, but rather issue of sequestering the surplus CO2 that is extracted during refinement.

I’m glad the WSJ reported the AF’s progress. Their chart was instructive in showing the effect of rising fuel prices on the AF budget.  I’m told that the AF spends an additional half a billion dollars a year every time the price of oil goes up $10 a barrel.  That’s why the cost of fuel has more than doubled (from $5B to $12B) from 2004 to 2007, following only a 2% rise from 2003 to 2004.   (You can imagine the havoc that’s having on the AF budget!)

Watch this site to stay up with how the AF Research Lab is leading industry in creating alternatives in energy technology.

Renewable, synthetic automotive fuels will guarantee future mobility. Synthetic biofuels, also known as BtL fuels (Biomass to Liquids), are largely CO2-neutral and therefore play a major role in protecting our environment and climate. SunDiesel®, one of the range of SunFuel® products, is currently being introduced to the public arena in conjunction with Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG as SunDiesel® – made by CHOREN.

16/04/08

La tedesca Choren Industries inaugura un impianto di raffinazione per BTL, biodiesel di seconda generazione. Il BTL è un combustibile liquido ricavato dal legno e biomasse non alimentari grazie alla Sintesi Fischer-Tropsch . Lo stabilimento produrra’ 13.500 tonnellate di SunDiesel l’anno.

Interessati all’iniziativa: Mercedes, Volkswagen e Shell.

Fonte: ANSA

According to the ads, creating diesel from natural gas – a process called Gas to Liquid (GTL) – is a clean option for reducing world oil consumption.

So I went to Shell Oil’s website.  All the benefits were stated in terms of comparison to oil-based diesel, and in  creating diversity of options.

GTL Fuel has a large number of benefits for both regulators and fleet operators. It can be used in conventional diesel engines, but provides significantly lower emissions of local pollutants, such as particulates, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, even when compared to so-called ’sulphur-free’ diesel.

Shell’s approach is to use a proprietary low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch process, called Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis – SMDS,  that uses an improved catalyst to produce its liquid fuels.  They have been operating in Bintulu, Malaysia since 1998, and is capable of producing 14,700 bbl/day.   A new plant is under construction in Qatar that will produce up to 140,000 bbl/day GTL by the end of the decade.

Shell says that creating Fischer-Tropsch from agricultural feedstocks (or even coal) has greater technical challenges than using natural gas.  It says “the low-temperature, cobalt catalyst-based Fischer-Tropsch GTL process, however, produces an extremely clean synthetic fraction of gasoil called GTL Fuel that is virtually free of sulphur and aromatics.”

Shell already sells GTL at retail outlets in Greece, Thailand, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

Shell has partnered with Audi  to use Shell GTL (R10) fuel – based on Shell V-Power Diesel technology.  In its first competitive race in March 2006, the Audi R10 TDI won a maiden victory at the Sebring 12 hour race in Florida, and won the 24-hour La Mans race in June 2006.

“Not only was it the first diesel car to ever finish the race, but it also completed the most laps (380), 4 laps ahead of its gasoline rival. With the help of Shell V-Power Diesel technology continuously cleaning the fuel injection system, the winning Audi R10 was able to sustain this great performance right through to the end of the race, and was noticeably quieter than the gasoline cars. This remarkable result was due in part to the inclusion of high cetane Shell GTL Fuel in the race formulation, enabling the fuel to burn more cleanly and efficiently than conventional diesel.”

I’m concerned about consumption of Natural Gas for fuel, instead of creating new fuels, but I glad Shell is creating both demand and infrastructure for FT fuels.

Coal gassification is gaining press.  Now that the US Air Force has proven modernized processes for improved Fischer-Tropsch production, commercial firms are being lined up to create this alternative to oil.

 So how can you make money on this boom?  Aside from choosing to use SynGas in your fleet, you can choose to invest in the companies that are leading the way in gassification manufacture.

According to CTLtech Asia 2008 Technology Conference, the leaders in the industry are:

I don’t know anything about any of these, but I think I’m going to start looking.  I expect FT syngas to make major dent on the world oil needs.  And I want to own stock while I can still get in at a reasonable price.

 If you know (without marketing hype, please!) which ones have solid value fundamentals, please let me know.  I look for low PE and low price-book ratios, as well as solid earnings potential and market respect.

FYI – the conference was organized by the Centre for Management Technology (CMT),  a world leader in petrochemical conferences.

Now that the technology has been proven successful, the USAF is ready to transfer the technology to someone who can begin to make production quantities.

Yesterday, I wrote that the Air Force plans to fuel all its jets with 50/50 syngas by 2011. Today we learn that the AF wants to fuel half its North American ground fleet with a synthetic-fuel blend by 2016. To do so, it would need 400 million gallons of coal-based fuel annually.

And they want the private sector to help them do it. The AF wants to create a market for some enterprising companies to fill. (The market would be shared by commercial air fleets, long-haul trucking companies, and others.)

“Because of our size, we can move the market along,” he said. “Whether it’s (coal-based) diesel that goes into Wal-Mart trucks or jet fuel that goes into our fighters, all that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which is the endgame.”

Technology transfer has always been an issue for the military research labs. The labs have the authority to push the state of knowledge beyond what the commercial marketplace has been willing to tackle. In the past, military labs have created or funded the development of the transister, the compact disk, widespread use of the precursor to the internet, online file sharing, and many of the core technologies under the social networking ond mapping software applications.

Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. eplains. “Coal producers have been unsuccessful in prior efforts to cultivate such a market. Climate change worries prompted Congress last year to turn back an attempt to mandate the use of coal-based synthetic fuels.”

The Air Force would not finance, construct or operate the coal plant. Instead, it has offered private developers a 700-acre site on the base and a promise that it would be a ready customer as the government’s largest fuel consumer.

A 2006 report from the National Coal Council said a fully mature coal-to-liquids industry serving the commercial sector could produce 2.6 million barrels of fuel a day by 2025. Such an industry would more than double the nation’s coal production, according to the industry-backed Coal-to-Liquids Coalition.

Read more here.

Progress continues in certifying Fischer-Tropsch process of producing synthetic fuels. 

On Wednesday, March 19, a B1 bomber became the US Air Force’s first aircraft to fly at supersonic speed using a 50/50 blend of synthetic and petroleum fuel. The flight occurred over the White Sands Missile Range airspace in south-central New Mexico but took off from Dyess AFB, Abilene , Texas .The certification process so far has detected no significant differences in performance, flight safety, durability, ground handling or storage between synfuel and conventional JP-8. 

This is the fourth USAF aircraft to be certified to use syngas, and keeps them on schedule to convert the entire fleet to the 50/50 blend by 2011. 

In other news, the U.S. Air Force team that has developed this blend of petroleum and synthetic fuel for the B-52 Bomber received the Federal Aviation Administration’s 2007 Excellence in Aviation Research Award at a ceremony March 14.

Barry Scott, director of the FAA Research and Technology Development Office, said that ”in the 10 years we’ve given it, this was the first unanimous choice.”

Development of synfuel is a significant effort in the Air Force’s quest to find a source of domestically produced, assured fuels, which would be sufficient for the Air Force to perform its national defense mission if current, overseas petroleum sources are threatened. Other motivations include fuel prices and environmental concerns. (FT syngas burns cleaner and is cheaper to make than JP-8.) The research and certifications are also useful for certifying commercial jet engines.  The long-range effects should be cleaner airwaves and more stable energy prices.

Sorry for the bad pun, but I’ve learned that the US Air Force is testing the use of synthetic fuels in its larger jet aircraft.

According to the US Air Force News Service, the Air Force flew a C-17 transport aircraft on Oct 22, 2007 using a Fischer-Tropsch/JP-8 fuel blend.

“There was no discernible difference between JP-8 and Fischer-Tropsch,” said Maj. Scott Sullivan, the mission pilot.

The USAF plans to convert the entire C-17 fleet to the synthetic blend, starting in early 2008. The final steps for C-17 certification include a service evaluation out of McChord Air Force Base, Wash., completion of material compatibility tests and final supplier qualification of the engine, auxiliary power unit and fuel quantity measurement system with the Fischer-Tropsch/JP-8 blend. The C-17 holds around 30,000 gallons of fuel, and is refueled several times a day.

This is the second type of AF aircraft to use this blended fuel. Last summer, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber was certified to use the FT/JP8 blend. The B-52 is the oldest aircraft type in the inventory, delivered to the AR in 1961 and 62, making them all over 40 years old. It’s 8 engines consume a large amount of fuel; it has a maximum capacity of 312,197 pounds (48,030 gallons), and often uses at least that much on each flight, plus in-flight refueling.

If FT can be produced for the estimated $35 a barrel (There are about 42 gallons per barrel of FT.) In that oil currently sells for over $100 a barrell, the cost savings of a FT blend would be substantial: for the B-52, the savings would be over $100k per sortie . And although the C-17 engines are more efficient, flown more each day, and they, too, would save over $100k per day.

FT fuel is also a cleaner fuel, with less pollution.

In accordance with the Secretary of the Air Force’s Assured Fuels Initiative, all USAF aircraft will be certified by 2011. An office has been created at the Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to manage this unparalleled effort.

I recently learned about methane hydrates, deposits rich in methane. Popular Mechanics reports that “Methane bound in hydrates could provide the world with an astounding amount of natural gas–if it could be safely extracted.”The article states that “100,000 to 300 million trillion cu. ft. (tcf) of methane exists globally in hydrate form–most of it in the ocean floor.” The trick is extracting it safely. If it’s not harvested properly, it will release into the atmosphere and speed up global warming.

The process needs Carbon Dioxide to make it work. And the best source of CO2 is from Fischer-Tropsch, which produces diesel from coal, with CO2 as a byproduct.

p.s. – Thanks to Doug Reitz, who wrote the blog about methane hydrates that introduced me to this potent new source of natural gas.

Now that oil has topped $100 a barrel, it high time to look for alternatives to oil. The most mature process for synthetic fuel is the Fischer-Tropsch Process. It’s been around a while.  Nazi Germany developed it for use during World War II. When the world put South Africa under an oil embargo because of its apartheid policies, they adopted FT. They developed it into a clean-burning fuel, and were able to generate of electricity and make fertilizer with during the processing. What was left over helped make paving materials.

The problem is that it costs about $45 a barrel to make it. Until a couple of years ago, regular oil cost less than that, so no one wanted to invest in it. Now that oil prices have spiked, it looks pretty cheap.

Western Interstate Energy Board study report

Experts say you could build a medium-sized plant (30,000 gallons a day) right next to existing coal fields. Very little transportation cost. Not vulnerable to weather impacts. And ten would cover the DoD’s current energy needs, without additional energy conservation measures.

But, you ask, is this artificial fuel as good as oil-based gasoline? Researchers have found that it works well for the turbine engine. Dr McGrath says the only problem shown so far is that it’s almost too clean. Our military systems are designed to use dirty fuel, so for a while we’d need to blend traditional oil with FT synthetic fuels. But that’s still a huge savings until we can redesign our systems to work with the cleaner fuels.

I expect that we will use the huge Science & Technology research capacity of the DoD to drive the whole US market to developing not only efficient FT plants, but also to develop new vehicles and power plants that burn cleaner without expensive (and fuel-inefficient) scrubbers on the exhaust.

In November 2007 Qatar Airways, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Fuel Company, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Shell International Petroleum and the Qatar Science and Technology Park signed an agreement to research the potential benefits of synthetic jet fuel in aviation engines. Less than three months later the first test flight under that agreement took place.

An Airbus A380 aircraft has successfully completed a flight with one of its four engines running on a blend of synthetic jet fuel and normal aviation fuel. The three hour flight from Filton in the UK to Toulouse, France, is the first in a test flight programme that is designed to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative aviation fuels. Airbus also intends to study viable second generation biofuels when they become available.

Shell International Petroleum provided the Shell GTL Jet Fuel that it produced from natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process. This process is not environmentally friendly in that it results in significant CO2 emissions during the production process. The up side is that it produces fuel that is very clean and with little or no sulphur content. As a result of its cleanliness it produces less pollutants when burnt in a jet engine. However, as far as I know it still produces more CO2 through its life cycle than normal jet fuel although the 119 percent figures I am thinking of are based on coal-to-liquid. Gas-to-liquid may be better.

The US Air Force has certified similar synthetic fuel for use in B-52s and C-17s (previous post) so while this was a significant achievement for Airbus and partners it is not a first for modern aviation.

Source: Airbus and Shell via Sky News