Military Has Alaska in Its Target for Synthetic Fuel ProjectApril 03, 2009

 

Synthetic Fuel Project

The U.S. military is launching a pilot initiative in Alaska to create synthetic fuels to power jets using coal-to-liquid or gas-to-liquid plants.

According to an article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the Department of Defense fuel procurement officials recently contacted companies that might be able to provide fuels made with a feedstocks of natural gas or coal using a gasification process called Fischer-Tropsch.

The Defense Energy Support Center — the Pentagon's petroleum purchasing arm — is spearheading the initiative to meet the military's needs and a national goal of supplanting half of its domestic fuel use with a 50-50 synthetic fuel blend by 2016, according to the article.

For the past few years, the military has imported synthetic fuels from Malaysia and South Africa to test compatibility with its jets. "The unfortunate reason we did that is that there were no producers in the U.S. who could provide that volume of fuel," Mark Iden, director of the Defense Energy Support Center, told the Daily News-Miner. “If we have production facilities, we'd better get these facilities up and running."

In order for the pilot effort to succeed, contractors must create a synthetic fuel that does not cost much more than regular fuel. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions generated through production can't be higher than conventionally produced fuels, the article noted.

(© U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Michael Boquette)