On a crystal-clear March day a U.S. Air Force mission code named “Dark 33” swings into action. A lone B-1 super-sonic bomber races across the skies over the top-secret White Sands Missile Range deep in the New Mexico desert.
Captain Rick Fournier of the 9th Bomber Squadron based at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas is at the controls. He pushes “Dark 33” through a series of steep dives, sharp turns, and then climbs straight up toward the heavens. Next comes the ultimate test. Capt. Fournier guns the throttle as “Dark 33” breaks mach-1... flying faster than the speed of sound.
This mission has nothing to do with the war in Iraq or Afghanistan… but it is vitally important to the energy security of the United States – particularly the U.S. military. Mission accomplished, Capt. Fournier and his crew have successfully pushed the Air Force further into the wild-blue-yonder of the alternative fuel revolution.
U.S. Military Seeks Energy Security
You see, "Dark 33" was the first Air Force jet ever to break the sound barrier while running on alternative fuel – specifically synthetic jet fuel. The successful mission is a key milestone for the U.S. military in breaking its dependence on conventional fuel. The military burns up 340,000 barrels of oil every day.
The Pentagon's energy bill totaled $13.6 billion in 2006.
The cost of jet fuel for the Air Force alone has tripled in the past four years.
The Pentagon is worried about its dependence on foreign oil, which represents a “strategic threat” to American security. Global crude oil supplies are tight as a drum, and any unexpected disruption in the flow “could cripple military operations around the world,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
So the military is now planning around the “peak oil” theory. That includes major investments in the alternative energy sector. Last year in fact, “Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas opened one of the largest solar arrays in the U.S., a 140-acre field of 72,000 motorized panels that powers the base and sells energy to nearby communities.”
Air Force Goes Green... Pushing Private-Sector Investment
As a huge consumer of jet fuel, the Air Force is spending even more time and money developing revolutionary new fuel sources for its aircraft. The Air Force first tested synthetic fuel in a B-52 bomber in 2006, and has been pushing forward to certify the use of alternative fuels in all its aircraft, now including the super-sonic flight of the B-1 bomber code named “Dark 33”.
The technology for turning coal and natural gas into liquid synthetic fuel has been around for a long time. The process was invented by a pair of German scientists, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, in the 1920s. The trick has been to reduce the price tag of such synthetic fuel (or “synfuel”) to make it cost-competitive with crude.
When the Air Force tested synfuel in a B-52 in 2006, the cost was nearly $20 a gallon – not very appealing. But less than two years later the B-1 flight in March cost the Air Force just $4.62 a gallon – not much more than the petroleum based jet fuel it was mixed with. Now the Air Force is getting in the ballpark.
This story is a great example of how government research (in the case the U.S. military) helps push private enterprise into innovations they otherwise might not. Synfuel certainly isn’t economically feasible (or profitable) at $20 a gallon. But since the Air Force continues to make alternative sources a priority, private enterprise is willing to invest and innovate to bring costs down.
A few years ago, Canadian-based Baard Energy decided to build the first commercial-scale synthetic-fuel refinery in the U.S., to be completed in 2012. Explaining the investment, CEO John Baardson told the Wall Street Journal “he decided to roll the dice on the $6 billion plant because of the military's interest.
‘There isn't a market for this right now, so it takes a little bit of faith to get these plants going’… ‘Knowing the military was out there took one huge risk factor out of the decision-making process.’”
Profiting From the Great Fuel Revolution
Perhaps the best example of government-backed alternative fuel innovation can be found in Brazil. Stung by the oil price shocks of the 1970’s, the government invested heavily in sugar-based ethanol. Brazil mandated that every gasoline station carry ethanol, and that new cars must be flux-fuel capable.
Today 29,000 filling stations in Brazil have ethanol pumps – compared to just 700 in the U.S. – there’s one on every street corner. Also, 85% of all the new cars in Brazil can run on ethanol – compared to just 5% of U.S. cars.
Brazil has replaced 40% of the gasoline it consumes with ethanol – resulting in nearly $60 billion in oil import savings since 1975. Brazil’s booming sugar-cane based ethanol industry has also created 1 million new jobs along the way.
Similar innovations in the U.S. would lead to even bigger cost savings, and help our nation establish greater energy security, if not total independence. The Air Force is off to a flying start synfuel research and development, but much more can be done.
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The technology for turning coal and natural gas into liquid synthetic fuel is NOT green.
Posted by: Ludvig | May 26, 2008 at 04:33 PM