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C-17 flies cross country on synthetic fuel

Today was the day the first C-17 Globemaster flew across the country powered by synthetic fuel.

A Globemaster — its tanks half-filled with standard jet fuel and half with a synthetic, coal-derived fuel — flew Dec. 17 from Washington’s McChord Air Force Base to New Jersey’s McGuire Air Force Base. The B-52 bomber is already certified to use this fuel mix and full certification is expected for the C-17 in coming months.

It’s the latest milestone in an effort to prove all of the Air Force’s fleet can use this domestically produced synthetic fuel by 2011. By 2016, the Air Force wants all of its flights in the continental U.S. powered by the mix, touted as cleaner and less reliant on petroleum piped from foreign soil.

Looking further into the future, Assistant Secretary William Anderson with the Air Force’s Installations, Environment and Logistics department estimated that synthetic fuel could power jets on live, operational missions by the middle of next decade.

“We believe we need domestic sources of aviation fuel so we can fight tonight and fight tomorrow,” he said.

Anderson, at a Dec. 12 Pentagon meeting with reporters, laid out a sweeping package of Air Force alternative energy projects, some of them certain and some of them in rough, innovative stages. The Air Force, as the American government’s largest consumer of oil, must use its buying power to kick-start the private sector’s fledgling alternative fuels market. He’s presently in talks, for example, with Montana officials over pushing commercial interests to mine the state’s coal reserves near Malmstrom Air Force Base and produce synthetic fuel.

The Air Force’s goal, Anderson said, is to build the market so it can provide roughly 400 million gallons of synthetic fuel to the service by 2016. It also needs to bring on allied air forces, which share refueling stations with the U.S.

Other projects in the works include:

*On the heels of commemorating the continent’s largest solar “photo-voltaic” power plant at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. — which covers 140 acres and will provide 25 percent of the base’s electricity — the Air Force will request proposals for similar plants at Luke, Kirtland and Edwards Air Force bases. They’re located, respectively, in Arizona, New Mexico and California. Though solar-powered projects are likely, Anderson said, other energy sources such as wind aren’t excluded.

*Developing a small nuclear-powered energy source — approximately one-tenth the size of a traditional nuclear reactor — that could power one base. These plans are in their infancy, Anderson said.

*Heavily researching biofuels, which contain energy derived from carbon sources such as plant life.