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DoD pushes to make synthetic fuels a reality

As gas prices and environmental concerns rise, the Air Force may finally be ready for nontraditional fuel.

The largest U.S. fuel consumer — 2.6 billion gallons burned in 2006 — has long sought alternatives, but only in the past few years have need and market forces allowed the synthetic fuel business to move beyond the realm of the boondoggle.

Billionaire Richard Branson has signed up to work with aerospace giant Boeing on synthetic fuels and reducing carbon emissions. Fledgling companies are dotting the developing world with alternative fuel factories.

At the Paris Air Show in June, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Federal Aviation Administrator Marion Blakey challenged existing fuel refineries and budding alternative energy companies to race each other to produce an efficient synthetic fuel that can be used by both commercial and defense aviation.

They want all Air Force aircraft certified to run on synthetic fuel by 2010, and they want to actually fly them — at least those in the U.S. — on 50 percent synthetics by 2016.

That would mean about 800 million gallons of nonpetroleum-based fuels consumed by the Air Force per year, said William Anderson, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and logistics.

The Air Force, which spends about 80 percent of its energy budget on aviation fuel, sees its annual fuel bill rise $60 million for each $10 rise in the price of a barrel of oil.

Certification will be swifter if the commercial side begins testing and approving synthetics because so many Defense Department aircraft use commercially derived engines. Since a Boeing 757 airliner uses the same engine as a C-17, certifying one plane for synthetic fuel use more or less certifies the other, he said.

Plus, commercial aviation has to get into the synthetic-fuel game for the new fuel to become and remain viable.

Actually getting the gas, however, remains a challenge. There are plants under construction or coming on line in China, India, Indonesia, Qatar and South Africa.

But President Bush has said he wants synthetic fuels to come from U.S. sources. Moreover, the Air Force doesn’t want to trade one foreign energy dependency for another.

The 100,000 gallons of synthetic fuel purchased last year for tests using a B-52 bomber came from Tulsa, Okla.-based Syntroleum. The company has decided to forgo the expense of building conversion facilities and instead license their production process to manufacturers.

“These are multibillion-dollar plants,” said Syntroleum spokesman Gary Gamino. “It’s difficult for a small company like us to fund something like that.”

The company’s latest venture would provide the Defense Department with a 500-gallon test batch of fuel produced from animal fat provided by Tyson Foods. In that venture, Syntroleum is a 50/50 partner with Tyson Foods, which will provide fat for producing the gas and half the capital to build a $150 million production facility.

While the first two steps of the three-step Fischer-Tropsch process are extremely expensive, the waxy “synthetic crude” they produce is chemically similar to animal fats, oils and greases, Gamino explained. Skipping the first two steps by using animal fats and modifying the final step slightly yielded “Biofining,” patented technology that can produce diesel or jet fuel at lower cost and risk than traditional liquid or coal operations.

And with 21 million tons of animal fats and greases produced in the U.S. every year, there is ample stock to go around.