Navy to Turn Seawater into Jet Fuel

Source:
www.nbcnews.com...

In an nutshell, the Naval Research Laboratory has come to the conclusion that it should be possible to extract Carbon Dioxide and Hydrocarbons from seawater and then recombine them into a jet fuel similar to JP-5 while on the go.

JP-5 is a kerosene based jet fuel which the Navy uses in pretty much everything. Small boats, helicopters, fighters, LCACs and so on.

Producing the fuel at sea means no more at-sea refueling from USNS Oilers. It also means more active time in a combat zone. That is, if they can get it to work as cheaply as they think ($3 - $6 per gallon).

The only catch is that a lot of energy is required to make the fuel. So it would only be feasible from nuclear powered ships. So it would be solely limited to the CVN aircraft carriers and not any LHA, LHD, LPD or '___' ships.

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

reply to post by allenidaho


The military has been testing some pretty cool new biofuels. The Air Force has certified pretty much all their aircraft to fly on the new fuels. One of the processes can turn anything that is carbon based into jet fuel.

reply to post by allenidaho

Producing the fuel at sea means no more at-sea refueling from USNS Oilers. It also means more active time in a combat zone. That is, if they can get it to work as cheaply as they think ($3 - $6 per gallon).

The only catch is that a lot of energy is required to make the fuel. So it would only be feasible from nuclear powered ships. So it would be solely limited to the CVN aircraft carriers and not any LHA, LHD, LPD or '___' ships.

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

It’s the same problem faced by all alternative to oil-based fuel……it costs too much.

People need to drop the pipe and realize that oil isn’t going away. If we could have solar, wind, nuclear, WATER energy to replace oil today we’d already have it, and a lot of people would be multi-billionaires right now because of it, while the rest of us (consumers) reaped the advantages as well.

In this application though, if it works, it could be a good strategic advantage regardless of cost.

Good find! S&F

In an nutshell, the Naval Research Laboratory has come to the conclusion that it should be possible to extract Carbon Dioxide and Hydrocarbons from seawater and then recombine them into a jet fuel similar to JP-5 while on the go.

Not hydrocarbons from seawater, hydrogen and CO2.

Basically a matter of converting electrical energy into chemical energy. Not practical now but as the price of diesel goes up it could make sense.
www.dtic.mil...

reply to post by Phage


OMFG For once I agree with you

The petroleum industry has made sure that the military will never be able to use these new processes. Congress has passed a bill that says that the military can only buy biofuels if they get cheaper than current oil prices. The current cost of biofuel is very expensive, because they are new processes, and they aren't buying them in high enough quantities to bring the price down.

Very interesting. They are using a modified fischer-tropsch process. The FT process was developed by the Germans prior to the 2nd ww, they used coal as the carbon and hydrogen source to make "synthetic" oil. The Navy' process is getting it's carbon from the CO2 dissolved in the ocean. And for the hydrogen, the are using electrolysis of water to split H20 and collect the hydrogen. Another cool part is that the byproduct of the process is just water.

11 CO2 + 34H2 ~ C11 H24 (jet fuel) + 22H20 (3) Sum of equations

Wow, crazy inefficient, but renewable fuel, very cool.

This process could be used for manufacture of gasoline, or diesel.

Glad to see we are progressing as a society.
In the past we would pick up rocks and bash people over the head to kill them.
The current news is, aggressors able to destroy enemy's with sea water now.

I wonder how the economics of scale would drive down the costs with this process. They say ( from Phage's link) with nuclear power they could produce 100,000 gallons of jet fuel/day at a cost of roughly $5.74 / gallon.

So if they built a plant to make 1,000,000 gpd would the cost be $0.574/gallon?

This could also be a solution to the global warming, "too much CO2" argument. As this process would take the CO2 from burning fossil fuels, that gets dissolved in the ocean or in the atmosphere and turn it back into the hydrocarbon/fossil fuel. An endless cycle. Just put up a big plant next to a nuclear power plant.

US energy problems solved FOREVER.

That took forever to take kerosene out of the hands of Rockefeller.
Uber controllers giving in, hard to believe.
Must have been National Security reasons that finally won over the Illuminati control.
ED: Continued war efforts increase National Security reasons to take over oil and
energy sources. Does that call for end of the war efforts or new energy sources are
imperative.

reply to post by jacknast76


Germany tried to beat oil but oil won.
National Security reasons made Germany seek alternate energy sources.
Are we in the midst of oil controller vs.National Security struggle.

The military is currently trying to find ways off of crude. The one I've been eyeing is algae fuel.

They're messing with 30 acres of pond scum right now, with plans to expand it 9X to 300 acres soon.

Once they show what this gunk can do, it'll only be a matter of time before all that corn-subsidized land is flipped into pond scum.

Great Green Gamble

It looks like we'll know by 2020 if the green goo is the new black gold.

reply to post by jacknast76


Scale is always the problem. People look at how much it costs to produce a small number of something, and don't realize that bigger really is better.

Prime examples, the B-2 and the F-22. The B-2 was a planned buy of something like 200 aircraft. If they had bought all 200, the price would have been at most a couple hundred million. I don't think it was even that high. But by only buying 21 of them, the price was closer to a billion dollars a copy.

The F-22 would have been about $200-250M a copy at most if they had gone through with the planned buy. Instead they were over $400M a copy.

It's going to be the same with biofuels. The more they buy, the cheaper it will be, because the companies involved can get their R&D money back faster, and start showing a profit that much sooner. Except that Congress won't let them buy until they get the price down. As one Congressional member said, during the testimony of SECNAV about biofuels, he is the Secretary of the Navy, not the Secretary of Energy, so he needs to worry about the Navy, not new energy sources.