Synfuel & Energy Security

Back on May 21st, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article describing efforts by the US Air Force to test the use of synfuels in its bombers and fighters.

As the Journal article explained,

"Despite its high-tech connotations, synthetic fuel -- often dubbed "synfuel" for short within the industry -- has been around for decades. The basic technology for transforming coal or natural gas into synthetic fuel was invented by a pair of German researchers, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, in the 1920s. The Nazis later used the Fischer-Tropsch process to mass-produce synthetic diesel fuel. During the apartheid-era embargo against South Africa, scientists there tweaked the technology so it could also produce synthetic jet fuel.

The Fischer-Tropsch process transforms a synthetic gas derived from coal or other material into liquid gas. The resulting synthetic fuel is different from biofuel, commonly produced from corn, sugar or other plants. Continental Airlines Inc. has announced plans for an experimental flight using biofuel this spring, which would be the first by a U.S. carrier; Virgin Atlantic also has done some testing."

I have had a vague awareness of this process for some time. Originally, I thought it converted coal into liquid hydrocarbons, then I later thought that was mistaken, and it only 'gassified' coal to burn like natural gas. In fact, it does produce liquid fuel. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, in a sense, it might be, as the Journal piece noted,

"The pure synthetic fuel Syntroleum sold the Air Force for the B-52 test flight in 2006 cost almost $20 a gallon. Its price since has come down sharply, but the synthetic product used in the B-1 supersonic test in March still cost $4.62 a gallon. It was mixed with petroleum fuel costing $3.04 a gallon, according to government officials."

You can guess, and the article confirms, that if large refiners knew that the US government stood ready to buy their output at some reasonable minimum price, the cost and, subsequently, price of synfuel would fall dramatically.

But then there's this aspect to the synfuel solution,

"Military use of synthetic fuel faces significant obstacles. The energy bill signed into law by President Bush last year included a clause preventing the government from buying the fuel if it emits more pollution than petroleum. Manufacturers have promised to meet that target by recapturing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses produced in refining. Without those efforts, synthetic fuel can emit up to twice as much pollution in refining as conventional petroleum."

Here is where common sense would hopefully prevail. Seeing the US, as Boone Pickens believes, spend $500B per year buying oil from external suppliers, isn't it worth something to avoid that import bill?

Screw the greenhouse gases for now, we're talking energy security. Military energy security. As the Journal article states,

"The problems are particularly acute for the Air Force, which uses about 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, or 10% of the entire domestic market in aviation fuel. The Air Force's fuel costs neared $6 billion last year, up from $2 billion in 2003, even as its consumption fell by more than 10% over the same period because of energy-savings measures, including a campaign to shut off lights and lower thermostats at bases.

The Air Force wants to be able to purchase 400 million gallons of synthetic jet fuel a year by 2016, an amount equal to 25% of its total fuel needs for missions in the continental U.S. This year, it expects to buy slightly more than 300,000 gallons."

With all the handwringing about US energy security, surely it's worth first reducing our dependence on overseas petroleum, then working on the emissions issues.

Here we have a clear, proven, even old technology which will make good use of coal, the fuel which America has in such abundance that we are sometimes called the 'Saudi Arabia of coal.' And yet in the midst of tight petroleum supplies and dwindling non-sovereign control of the energy source, we needlessly hamper our own ability to convert coal into synthetic oil and gasoline.

And the Air Force tests? The Journal had this to report,

"On a clear day in March, the three men took off for New Mexico with a reporter aboard. When the B-1 crossed into the closed airspace above the White Sands Missile Range, Capt. Fournier yanked back his throttle and sent the plane climbing almost straight up, throwing the bomber's occupants back into their seats. He then pitched into a steep dive. Pens and other small objects hovered around the cabin, weightless, until the plane leveled off again.

Capt. Fournier fired the plane's afterburners and sent the bomber roaring over the range. A small dial in the cockpit showed that the bomber was flying faster than Mach 1.

Back at Dyess, the crew packed into a small conference room to analyze the flight with a crew of military and civilian officials, including a pair of engineers from GE, which makes the bomber's engines. Capt. Fournier said the plane handled normally at high speeds and on sharp turns. The only difference he noticed was that the synthetic fuel had a different smell than conventional jet fuel. "So it didn't give you the normal buzz?" one of the engineers joked.

With the B-1 certified to fly on the synthetic mix, Maj. Donald Rhymer, the deputy director of the Air Force's alternative-fuels certification office, said the Air Force would soon test fighters such as its workhorse F-16.

"Our biggest litmus test was Capt. Fournier coming out of the B-1 and saying that it was an unremarkable flight," Maj. Rhymer said as the meeting ended. "That's the subjective endorsement we're looking for with all of the planes.""