Posted on 10/02/2009 7:11:27 AM PDT by larry hagedon
Sustainable Oils, Solazyme, Cargill to supply 600,000 gallons of jet biofuel to US military
In Washington, the US Air Force has ordered a total of 400,000 gallons of renewable biofuels from Sustainable Oils, Cargill and Solazyme for testing as a military aviation fuel. the companies, in turn, will use UOP’s processing technology to convert oil from camelina, algae and animal fats into renewable jet fuel.
According to UOP, fuel will be delivered in 2009 and 2010 to support flight certification and testing efforts. Combined with a 190,000 gallon US Navy order recently placed for algal fuels, using feedstock provided by Solazyme, the military has ordered a total of 600,000 gallons of renewable jet fuel over a 2-year period, in a series of contracts issued by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC). For the Air Force order, DESC tapped Cargill and Sustainable Oils to provide jet fuel made from rendered animals fats and camelina, respectively.
(Excerpt) Read more at biofuelsdigest.com ...
Obviously we still need to drill here drill now.
Sustainable Oils, Cargill and Solazyme ..connections connections connections
That, too.
I'm sure that engineers could chime in on this.
OMG! Did the gubment finally get something right?!!
But I am reminded that one of the key advantages which helped the British win the Battle of Britain was that the Spitfires and Hurricanes were getting fuel of superior quality.
As long as the quality is as high as possible, I don't care where our jets get the stuff.
http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=1201
With biodiesel that meets the [ASTM] D-6751 specification, there have been over 45 million miles of successful, problem-free, real-world operation with B20 blends in a wide variety of engines, climates, and applications. The steps taken by the biodiesel industry to work with the engine companies and to ensure that fuel meets the newly accepted ASTM standards provides confidence to users and engine manufacturers that their biodiesel experiences will be positive and trouble-free.
I’m not an engineer, but military engines are rarely as persnickety about the grade of fuel they use as civilians are. For one thing, military engines have no emissions management systems, as your car does, so they aren’t likely to clog. Also, even though Jet-A and diesel are nearly the same, jets use it in a very different way. A turbine is essentially an external-combustion engine, which uses the combustion process to turn the impellers in its compressor, and which generates incredibly high temperatures. A reciprocating diesel engine has a much lower tolerance for temperature, so it has to use a fuel that is less likely to create deposits when burned at lower temps. Not to mention that your car will probably run just fine on nearly pure biodiesel, but the manufacturer wants to minimize any warranty repairs that might stem from someone trying to run homebrew biodiesel that is largely glycerin. By excluding biodiesel, they are making an accounting decision, not an engineering one.
So we can kill people at the same time we can be kinder to mother earth? How bizarre. This is as stupid as forcing soldiers to use non lead bullets in firing ranges.
I’ve run cars on pure vegetable oil from the bottle.
“a form of perversion to pass over, literally, the oil resources in the ground”
If we’re talking perversion, how about letting US resources sit idle, drilling a big hole in the ground, pouring in product from the suadies & calling it a “strategic reserve”
Nice! This ought to go well with the lack of water in the San Juaquin Valley and 25% crops this year!
Corn to be $8 an ear next year? Sheesh.
You know sometimes our “pig military” does do nice things.
Like now they are using C 17s to haul supplies to Samoa for disaster relief.
ALternate fules for the military are important. Remember, the German war effort carried on for more than a year on mostly ‘alternate fuels’....where would be be if the A-rabs decided to cut us off - again?
I've seen stories saying that that was possible with older diesels.I think the newer ones might be more complex...or maybe it's just for emissions purposes.But we're talking military jets here.If standard jet fuel (or some special blend made to DoD specs) works...why fool around with success? Unless,of course,you harbor some secret contempt for our military.
(The "you" I referred to is Hussein...not you)
The GELL POINT of 100% biofuel is about 37 degrees (F). Ahould be interesting at 50,000 feet!
The only fuel that could potentially work and that is being developed by Bell Bio-Energy! This is REAL oil, not subject to GELL at temps above 0 degrees(F).
http://www.bellplantation.com/images/BPH_Newsletter/April_09/Fort_Stewart_Press_Release_No-2.pdf
It’s not about being kind to the environment. It’s about developing a supply chain that does not extend back to the enemies territory.
As far as non lead bullets, I have seen range officers with lead poisoning.
The engineers whose opinions matter are testing bio-jet-fuel extensively, and have been doing so for a couple of years. To the best of my understanding, the tests have gone quite well.
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