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good news: synthetic jet-fuel, the bad news: 700 percent more costly



 
 
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Old February 19th, 2007, 11:49 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Cohen
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Default good news: synthetic jet-fuel, the bad news: 700 percent more costly

Air Force Tests Synthetic Fuel in N.D.
By JAMES MacPHERSON

Associated Press Writer

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. - With the wind chill making it seem like
40 below zero, Lt. Col. Daniel Millman said the Air Force picked the
right place to test a new fuel.

Millman, pilot of a B-52 bomber, helped test a synthetic fuel blend
that could be made domestically from coal or natural gas as the Air
Force seeks to wean its dependence on foreign crude and defray soaring
fuel costs.

The cold-weather ground tests of the fuel showed it compared well to
conventional petroleum-based military aviation fuel, known as JP-8,
Air Force officials said.

"It behaves exactly the same as JP-8, no more no less," Millman said.

The fuel is a Fischer-Tropsch fuel, named after the two German
scientists who developed the process in 1923 of converting natural gas
or coal into liquid fuel.

Germany used the process to convert coal to fuel during World War II.
And apartheid-era South Africa, faced with embargoes, also built coal-
to-fuel plants.

The Air Force had been testing the fuel blend on a single B-52 since
September, beginning at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert
and ending at Minot. About $5 million has been spent on the tests,
including some $2 million on the fuel, Harrison said.

At $20 a gallon, the Fischer-Tropsch fuel costs about eight times as
much as the standard fuel it uses, so its widespread use in military
aircraft could still be years away.

But proponents of the fuel argue that if there was increased
commercial demand - and airlines are interested in the outcome of the
tests, according to one Air Force official - its price would drop
drastically. Furthermore, they say, it would offer a measure of
protection should there be disruptions in the flow of global crude.

"The fact that we would not be dependent on foreign sources of crude
is the prime driver for this fuel," said Col. Eldon A. Woodie,
commander of the Minot Air Force Base 5th Bomb Wing.

Woodie said he's sold on the fuel after the B-52 tests of it at Minot.

"Can we start this thing in cold weather? If we lose a motor in
flight, can we restart it? At 47,000 feet can we get away from attack
missiles? Yes. In every instance it performed," he said.

One added benefit of the fuel is that it burns cleaner than
traditional jet fuel, Woodie said.

William Harrison, chief of the fuels branch at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, said the cold-weather testing at Minot
"was a key milestone for the approval of using the synthetic fuel."

A complete test report will likely be completed this summer, Harrison
said.

Jack Holmes, the CEO of Syntroleum Corp., which produced the natural
gas-based synthetic fuel used in the Air Force trials, said it could
also be made of coal.

"There are 280 billion tons of proven coal reserves in the U.S,"
Holmes said. "The raw material source is there. But economics, of
course, is the key.

"At current oil prices, the economics are good and make sense. The
risk is: How sustainable are those oil prices?"

Building a commercial plant to make the synthetic fuel would carry
some risk, as it would take several years and cost billions of
dollars, Holmes said.

"We've got a saying in our industry: Everybody wants to be the first
person to build the second plant," he said.

(Corrects cost to $20 per gallon; an earlier version gave the price
per barrel. Also makes clear that tests were conducted on the ground.)


___

February 17, 2007 - 11:03 a.m. EST

Copyright 2007, The Associated Press. The information contained in the
AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed
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