Air Force Renewables Dream: Carbon Dioxide to Jet Fuel

As an F-15 hurtles skyward, hydrocarbon jet fuel converts to energy, heat and CO2 at a rate of dozens of gallons of JP8 per minute. Fuel moves our aircraft, ground vehicles and most of our ships, but often comes from less-than-reliable places at more than affordable prices, and creates CO2 when it's combusted. One company in Santa Barbara, CA is developing a means to reverse that process by combining water and CO2 to get fuel.

Carbon Sciences' first prototype is set to run early in early 2009. Some will argue that the end result of this process is CO2 when the jet flies again so that's more greenhouse gas production. But on the other hand, if this works as planned, and the fuel is made from CO2, which everyone is trying to figure out to limit or sequester from a climate change perspective, then we've got a CO2 loop with net zero production.

As this blog concerns itself with energy security, economics and climate issues in that order, this is a potential huge win. Carbon Sciences is just getting started, but their claims that this process will scale could make them a very interesting player in the Air Force's next generation fuels efforts.

Potential Solution to DOD's Grid Dependency Problem

If I told you there was an interesting new renewable energy company with an office on Trinity Drive in Los Alamos, could you guess what kind of technology we'd be talking about? Nuclear would be a good start, but this time with important differences:

• Small in size
  
• About 25 MW in capacity - enough for 20,000 homes
  
• Inherently safe design, built to work underground
  
• $25-30M for each unit
• Almost ready for production
  

Here's another new company to keep an eye on: New Mexico-based Hyperion Power Generation. If they can execute their plan, we may have an affordable response to one of the DSB's Feb 2008 report's key recommendations about DOD bases needing to break their dependency on the fragile, vulnerable, national grid. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to take a few days off and come back with new posts starting 1 Dec.

Small Co Pushes Biofuel Flight Envelope

Tiny, Florida-based Green Flight International is a working a fuel problem the military in general, and the Air Force in particular, hope they can solve. With scrutiny and approval from the FAA and some support from Lockheed, Green Flight has just flown a 1960's-era single-engine Czechoslovakian training jet coast-to-coast on a nutritious 50-50 blend of JP8, soy and animal fat.

While the Air Force is currently certifying its inventory to fly on a mixture of JP8 and fuel derived from coal, the benefits of that process seem limited at present. Certainly, fuel from coal is a big energy security gain (the US owns a heck of a lot of coal). But it comes at high economic and environmental costs. So the next generation synthetic fuels in the Air Force's road map include biofuels derived from multiple potential sources. 

Green Flights' demonstrated ability to fly its jet on various types of fuels ... and its upcoming flight test of an algae-based biodiesel, is identifying some options the Air Force might do well to explore in greater depth. More details are in this Scientific American article from last year.

Photo: Green Flight International

Big 3 Redux

Thanks to feedback I got from a smart DOD Energy Blog reader over the weekend, I'd like to revise the Army vs. Big 3 comparison made in the previous post. My claim was that the Army was out ahead of GM in renewables and fuel efficiency R&D, and that this demonstrated commendable thinking on the Army's part. And that this was a sure sign of GM's (and Ford & Chrysler's) continuing neglect of an important new market segment.

Well, it's worth noting that the Army is compelled to action, at least in part, by DOD's recent embrace (in NDAA 2009 and earlier) of the the fully burdened cost of fuel (FBCF) concept as a key performance parameter (KPP). After years of system design and budgeting in a vacuum free of the constraints of fuel costs, conducting concurrent large-scale operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during a time of high and volatile oil prices has awoken the Pentagon to this problem ... in a big way.

US automakers have had no similar moment of truth this decade, as they've attempted to meet customer demand for higher quality, but not necessarily higher mileage, vehicles. I happily paid $1.87 per gallon to fill up my Ford yesterday and expect, barring a significant act of war or espionage, to pay low prices for some time. But what do I know? And aside from the Peak Oil theory to which many folks including me subscribe, what does anyone know about the price of oil in the next few years?

The Big 3 have prospered (generally) from selling cars that people in the US and Europe have wanted to buy. The current economic crisis is hammering them as it is all auto manufacturers. But my guess is that what's got the US companies in their particularly precarious present position has less to do with the fact they've yet to produce a Prius, and more to do with structural challenges and not really tackling their quality issues until relatively recently.

Photo of Ford's "Glass House" HQ courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Thinking about US Car Makers Tonight ...

... and how their fate might impact DOD in the energy/transportation sector. Word from Capitol Hill at the end of the day is that the CEOs were sent packing without the bailout deals they sought. I like that congress pushed back and basically said, "hey, you don't even have a plan for what you'd do with the money." So GM et al get to go back to Detroit and think up something smart mighty fast ... and not the usual SUV stuff or no one's going to buy it. For an outstanding analysis of the situation, with some keen comparisons to other times and industries, see this article from the Cleantech Blog's John Addison.

I know that the Army does a lot of great work in Warren, MI, just north of Detroit, in an org called the Tank Automotive Research and Development Engineering Center (TARDEC). One of their latest projects is called a Fuel Efficient Ground Vehicle Demonstrator (FED) using an approach inspired in part by the "Monster Garage"show. But the Army isn't innovating to win a reality show or even new customers. And it's not trying to maximize profits. Rather, its motives are mission based, as you can't be an effective rapid-tempo fighting force if a lack of fuel is always slowing you down ... or worse.

My guess is there's a lot of cross pollination and partnering in the vehicles ecosystem in Michigan. Seems like a reversal of stereotypes is occurring: the commercial companies in question have a lot to learn about business from the government ... in this case, an innovating, imaginative US Army.

Old and New Energy Development Hits the Brakes

Boston is hosting two energy-related conferences this week. One is the giant Green Build expo which is advancing the very successful LEED program, focusing on improving energy efficiency, energy management and materials issues in the construction industry. The other I discuss here is the 4th Conference on Clean Energy, which brings together much of the New England-area venture capital and academic tech transfer communities. Normally a very optimistic and stimulating stage to announce all the new stuff going on in the tech energy space.

While the innovators from MIT and elsewhere have some fantastic new technologies, the lead off speaker began by acknowledging an unruly and very large mammal head on: the elephant in the room. Though anyone with access to the media knows that the global economy is grinding to a halt and that investments and other capital expenditures are way down, it was a bit of a shock to hear it spoken out loud in a forum like this. Talk about boom-bust:

• Most energy infrastructure work (development and maintenance) is stalled ... worldwide
  
• Oil development work in US slowing, stopping
• Russia infrastructure will deteriorate and oil output will decline over next few years
• Only some OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia will continue to spending on their oil infrastructure ... though at a lower rate than in the past
• Investments in the renewables build-out way down as no money is flowing 

Take away: when the economy recovers, there' s going to be even less global oil available than there was when it hit $147 a barrel this summer. And the only country that's keeping its gear in good shape, Saudi, will comprise a larger % share of US oil imports than it ever has. For DOD, this is a very good time to avoid short term thinking if it can.

UAVs' Unknown (But Potentially Enormous) Impact on DOD Energy Demand

Recent DOD Energy Blog posts like this one have show strong trend lines towards greater use of UAVs by the US military. Much greater, in fact. Now this Slate article makes it clear that our Predator drones are doing a great job in Afghanistan, military and politically. 

And guess what that means? We're going to make more of these aircraft, train more ground-pilots, and keep UAVs in the air more often. I need to find out how much fuel these planes use per hour and how long a typical mission is. And how many are in the air at any one time. And how many will be in the air in a year. And will sensor and comm (if not weapon) systems be miniaturized enough for them to be carried on lightweight versions powered in part, or in full by solar/fuel cell/battery/etc. 

While the comparison is far from perfect, here's a taste of how much JP8 some of their manned counterparts consume from Dr. Karbuz's most recent paper:

• B1-B bomber: 59 gallons per minute
  
• B-52 bomber: 54 gallons per minute
  
• KC-135 tanker: 35 gallons per minute
  
• F-16 fighter: 13 gallons per minute
  

I wonder if someone at the Pentagon is keeping track of this and thinking about what this trend might do to AF and Army energy budgets and logistics?  

Lastly, it's not just the US that's learning how effective they can be, see the cautionary note the conclusion of the Slate piece about how other countries are becoming enamored of UAVs as well. And not just our friends.

Photo courtesy of Mike Hawes @ Flickr