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US Air Force Heading Initiative on Lifecycle Emissions Inventory for Fuels
9 April 2008
The US Air Force (USAF) is convening a working group comprising government, private industry, academia and environmental organizations to begin discussions on how to develop a comprehensive lifecycle inventory of various aviation fuels from alternative sources, including the Fischer-Tropsch coal to liquids fuels being tested in USAF aircraft.
The resulting consortium would be an initial step in what William Anderson, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics, describes as a much larger and more comprehensive project to develop lifecycle inventories for all energy sources to enable industry and government to make informed purchasing decisions.
The initial meeting of what could develop into an aviation and aerospace fuels lifecycle consortium is currently scheduled for 30 April in Washington, DC.
The Air Force began a synthetic fuels initiative in earnest in 2006, and intends to certify and be able to fly all its US-based aircraft on a 50-50 synthetic fuel blend by 2016.
We’re not looking for just a new source, we’re looking for a domestic source, so we have some surety of having supply if we need it. The feedstock of choice, based on the availability in the US and the need for the potency of a fuel in jet use, is coal, based on current technology. Biomass may be valuable in the future.
Knowing that there are concerns about greenhouse gas emissions [with coal], we said from the outset in January 2006 that the Air Force, when we get to the point of commercial sourcing, will only accept a fuel if it has a better environmental footprint than currently available. It’s not only CO2. There’s particulate matter, sulfur, NOx, other metals...our view is that alternative fuels ought to be cleaner across the board than what is available today.
In the two years since then, there has been some lively debate over how to make coal cleaner. The Air Force is investing its own funds to look at ways to make coal to liquid fuel. There has been a lot of discussion about CO2 emissions. We believe that there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done to inventory across the lifecycle of all energy sources.
Our call is for a global consortium to get together and execute on an Apollo-style project to not only document where CO2 emissions are coming from, but then to use that information for government and industry to make wise choices of where to spend their monet to get the biggest bang for the buck to reduce CO2. We are starting with a small step toward the grand vision.
—Assistant Secretary Anderson
April 9, 2008 in Aviation, Climate Change, Emissions, Fuels | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
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Life time in the atmosphere is something I came across when looking at engineered fluids from 3M for organic rankine turbines. Some molecules have a much longer dwell time in the atmosphere and that is a consideration.
I keep wondering if liquid H2 could be a fuel for jet aircraft. It is light with lots of energy and the mission/flight pretty much defines how much you need. Also, it does not have to be stored on the aircraft for long periods.
They are developing better tanks that are stronger and weigh less. There is a fueling infrastructure that services military and commercial aircraft now. Maybe this is not possible, but lately I have begun to wonder if it is.
Posted by: sjc | Apr 9, 2008 10:51:48 AM
After doing a bit of Google/Wiki, it seems that LH2 takes more volume, but is lighter for the same energy as liquid fuels. It may not be for jet fighters, but larger aircraft might be able to use it.
Posted by: sjc | Apr 9, 2008 11:13:18 AM
Use liquid methane. You could even synthesize on your aircraft carriers (oops, that's the Navy) using its nuclear power plant.
Posted by: Jim | Apr 9, 2008 11:25:23 AM
That sounds good and even better if it is CO2 neutral made from biomass. I wonder what is happening above 30,000 feet when you see contrails. Those are not just water vapor and there is a lot of jet aircraft travel in this country.
Lately, several small low cost airlines have gone out of business. Jet fuel price rises have done them in. If they could use LCH4 for fuel, they might buy it at $1 per 100,000 BTUs instead of $3. That might make air travel more affordable and cleaner.
Posted by: sjc | Apr 9, 2008 11:57:18 AM
@ Jim -
how would electricity magically produce methane? Where would the carbon come from? In fact, carrier-borne aircraft may be one of the very few instances for which liquid hydrogen could make sense - but only for aircraft specially designed with that fuel in mind, e.g. relatively slow reconnaissance/artillery spotter/submarine hunter UAVs with a BWB shape. Those can accomodate a spherical cryotank to support the on-board fuel cells and electrically driven propeller. Low exhaust temps mean there's nothing much for enemy IR missiles to latch on to.
Current-generation manned Navy fighters guzzle a lot of fuel and cannot accomodate LH2 cryotanks.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Apr 9, 2008 12:11:04 PM
I like the LNG commercial aircraft idea. I would like it LSNG, but you can not have everything for now. You would have to compress and cool NG at the airport, but the NG is piped right in, so delivery should not be a big problem.
There are stirling cyros that could keep the LNG cool if needed. On board APUs could be fuel cells. Maybe Boeing and Airbus have looked into this, but it seems to have merit.
Posted by: sjc | Apr 9, 2008 12:18:39 PM
how would electricity magically produce methane?Potassium carbonate capture and potassium bicarbonate electrolysis.
K2CO3 + CO2 + H2O -> 2 KHCO3
2 KHCO3 + e -> K2CO3 + H2 + ½O2 + CO2
Posted by: Reality Czech | Apr 9, 2008 1:10:05 PM
... followed by methanation with additional hydrogen:
CO2 + 4 H2 -> CH4 + 2 H2O
Posted by: Reality Czech | Apr 9, 2008 1:12:28 PM
Ironically the Air Force worries about using cleaner burning coal to liquid as a fuel in their aircraft that can be produced in the USA and then goes out and buys a foreign made tanker that uses 2600 lbs of fuel an hour more than the Boeing made aircraft. As long as they are consistent I suppose.
Posted by: Rich | Apr 9, 2008 1:19:17 PM
Rich:
The Northrop/Airbus tanker will be "assembled" in the US. The non-US content of the 767 is surprising high.
Posted by: Bill W | Apr 9, 2008 1:25:11 PM
Bill:
You are correct. Boeing does outsource a large portion of its aircraft parts to foreign countries. I believe somewhere around 75% of the 767 is US content with the other tanker being a little lower.
Respectfully however, where what is produced doesn't really change the arguement. The cheapest unit of any kind of fuel to produce and the cleanest one to burn is one that is never used. Boeing commissioned an independent study of fuel burn that showed that the A330 will use around 417 gallons of fuel per hour more than the 767. Multiply that by 179 planes(contract amount) and 750 hours of flight per year for each plane and you get around 56 million gallons of fuel used each year more than if the Boeing plane is used. If my calculator was better I would multiply that by the 40 year life of the plane.
I think the AF is on track with the synthetic fuel but common sense is necessary as well.
767 arguement from Boeing:
http://www.boeing.com/ids/globaltanker/files/BOEG_IDS_TNK_1355N_B.pdf
Fuel usage study:
http://www.boeing.com/ids/globaltanker/files/FuelConsReport.pdf
Posted by: Rich | Apr 9, 2008 2:35:20 PM
