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Alternative fuel plans running on empty

An Air Force plan to fly all of its domestic iron with a mix of synthetic and regular jet fuels by 2016 has sugar in the gas tank.

An effort by the Obama administration to cut greenhouse gases and reluctance by the private sector to invest billions of dollars in domestic alternative fuel plants leave the Air Force with few options to become energy independent.

The Air Force is by far the world’s largest customer of aviation fuel, spending about $6 billion a year on more than 3 billion gallons — nearly all of it from foreign sources.

During the spike in petroleum prices last summer, the Air Force pushed hard to be able to use a fuel mix, testing a combination of JP-8 and a synthetic made from natural gas in airframes ranging from B-52s to F-22s.

“When we got to $4 a gallon gas, that [price] impacted how much it costs to fly and train in our aircraft,” said Maj. Gen. Del Eulberg, the service’s chief civil engineer.

So far, only foreign companies are producing the synthetic fuel in quantities that the Air Force needs, and no domestic company is interested in getting into business because of the time and financial commitment, said Pam Serino, director of the quality tech support office for the Defense Logistic Agency.

A plant takes up to four years to build and can cost much more than what it brings in.

“Depending on the output of the plants, they are in the billions of dollars — as in B, as in bravo,” Serino said.

The Defense Department is hoping to make alternative fuel production more attractive to private industry by offering an incentives package. Up for grabs right now is a five-year contract with five one-year renewal options for any company that builds a plant in Alaska.

So far, there have been no takers.

Serino and other experts think there’s no interest in the deal because commercial airlines still get fuel from cheaper sources.

“We spend $60 million in Alaska, the airlines spend $600 million in Alaska,” Serino said.

Though often lumped in with other environmental efforts, an alternative fuel isn’t eco-friendly. Fuel from liquefied coal produces twice the carbon emissions of conventional jet fuel, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“This is not clean tech. This is the other side of clean tech,” said Andy Bochman, a defense energy blogger and former Air Force communication and procurement officer.

Under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, federal agencies can’t purchase an alternative fuel with more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuel.

The Obama administration has also taken a hard line on lowering carbon emissions.

“They [alternative fuel producers] talk about doing it all, high carbon, low carbon,” said Daron Lovaas, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Who cares?” Lovaas asked rhetorically. “The problem is the president cares.”

A cleaner option is jet fuel derived from natural gas, but finding enough of the fuel to fly the Air Force gets tricky, said Jim Bartis, an analyst at Rand Corp., a global policy think tank.

“Natural gas to liquid does not make sense,” Bartis said. “Natural gas is too valuable of a fuel [strategically].”

The Air Force has pushed for coal, Bartis said, but viable experimental options for preventing carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere are years away.

For alternative fuel to be competitively priced, the experts agree, the price of oil would have to rise to $120 to $140 a barrel — it’s now hovering at just under $50 a barrel — and that jump will happen.

“Fuel prices are definitely going to go up,” said Bochman, the blogger and former airman. “People are extremely fickle; it was a lot easier to do this when gas was $4 a gallon nine months ago.”