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The head of a Texas company that plans to build a plant in Carbon County to turn coal into gasoline told state lawmakers Saturday that the project promises not only jobs and tax revenues but also would help the nation produce more energy domestically. Robert Kelly, chairman of DKRW Advanced Fuels of Houston, addressed the Legislature's Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee in Cheyenne. He said the project promised to help national security and energy security. "Where do you want to get your oil from? Where do you want to get your gas from?" Kelly said. "Do you...

Newt Gingrich won tonight’s debate, which he needed to do, but not because he out-maneuvered his opponents. Santorum and Romney were simply too focused on each other, with Paul tag-teaming alongside Romney (ambition makes strange bedfellows). All of this gave Gingrich cover and also gave him the opportunity to be the only candidate that directly and repeatedly went after Barack Obama. He looked like a statesman. His answer on infanticide and shifting the focus from GOP and birth control to Obama and his campaign against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was the rhetorical feat of the night.

An RQ-4 Global Hawk completed a 32-hour flight test using an alternative fuel mixture, Nov. 23. The 412th Test Wing's Global Vigilance Combined Test Force's Block 20 Global Hawk took off at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 22 and became the first remotely piloted aircraft to fly using the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel and regular JP-8 jet fuel blend. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a set of chemical reactions that converts carbon-based materials into liquid hydrocarbons. Typically utilizing coal, natural gas, or biomass as a feedstock, the resulting synthetic liquid is utilized as a petroleum substitute. "The RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft is...

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. -- With fuel prices soaring, the U.S. military, the country's largest single consumer of oil, is turning into an alternative-fuels pioneer. In March, Air Force Capt. Rick Fournier flew a B-1 stealth bomber code-named Dark 33 across this sprawling proving ground, to confirm for the first time that a plane could break the sound barrier using synthetic jet fuel. A similar formula -- a blend of half-synthetic and half-conventional petroleum -- has been used in some South African commercial airliners for years, but never in a jet going so fast. [Major Expense] "The hope is...

Sandia's synthetic-fuel recipe: Mix CO2 , water; heat with sun R. Colin Johnson (12-19-2007) In the hydrogen economy, automobiles would be powered by the simplest element on the periodic table, leveraging the element's abundance. But as the Hindenburg disaster demonstrated, hydrogen is also the most difficult element to compress into a safe, usable form. Why not instead synthesize a hydrocarbon-based fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline? Sandia National Laboratories is building such a fuel synthesizer in a bid to harness sunlight to reverse the process of combustion. The reactor would use reclaimed carbon dioxide emissions to create renewable synthetic...

Afterburning engine tests of synthetic fuel are under way, and the US Air Force is preparing to certificate its second aircraft type to fly on the natural gas-based jet fuel. "We have started doing [Rockwell] B-1 engine testing and we have flown the [Boeing] C-17," says the USAF. Running a blend of synthetic and conventional jet fuel in the Pratt & Whitney PW2000-powered C-17 transport will be a bridge to commercial aviation use, with airlines and manufacturers closely watching tests of fuel produced using the Fischer-Tropsch process.

EDWARDS AFB- A C-17 cargo plane has begun testing a blend of synthetic fuel made from natural gas, part of a Pentagon effort to reduce the American military's reliance on imported oil. The Global Reach Combined Test Force began testing a C-17 Globemaster III using a blend of synthetical fuel, made by the Fischer-Tropsch process, mixed with conventional JP-8 fuel, according to an Edwards Air Force Base announcement. It is part of the Air Force's plans to certify the C-17 with synthetic blended fuel and develop an overall process to certify all Air Force aircraft with synthetic fuel. "Our goal...

The Air Force's fleet of B-52s, the nation's oldest active-duty aircraft, was certified Wednesday as the first that can use one of the Air Force's newest innovations: a cleaner-burning, domestically produced synthetic fuel blend. The certification is the culmination of a year-long test program conducted at Edwards, which was visited Wednesday by Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne to thank and congratulate the engineers, pilots and others who worked on the project. "This is a great day for the United States Air Force," Wynne said, "And another milestone for the Flight Test Center." Wynne called the B-52 fleet's certification "the tip...

EDWARDS AFB - The Air Force's fleet of B-52s, the nation's oldest active-duty aircraft, was certified Wednesday as the first that can use one of the Air Force's newest innovations: a cleaner-burning, domestically produced synthetic fuel blend. The certification is the culmination of a year-long test program conducted at Edwards, which was visited Wednesday by Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne to thank and congratulate the engineers, pilots and others who worked on the project. "This is a great day for the United States Air Force," Wynne said, "And another milestone for the Flight Test Center." Wynne called the B-52 fleet's...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Monday announced an agreement with a team of companies to build one of the nation's first coal-to-liquid fuel facilities. DKRW Advanced Fuels and Arch Minerals will take the primary role as the developers of the Bull Mountain Coal to Liquid plant. DKRW and Arch Minerals are the principal developers of the previously announced Medicine Bow CTL facility in Wyoming. The Montana plant would use what is called integrated gas combined cycle technology to gasify, rather than ignite the coal. The project calls for converting a portion of the synthetic gas into...

WASHINGTON - The Air Force will begin testing an alternative fuel program next month that it hopes will help wean the U.S. military away from its dependence on foreign oil. A flight test involving a B-52 bomber is scheduled for the end of September at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to determine if synthetic fuel will provide the Air Force with a substitute for conventional jet fuel. If successful, the B-52 flight will pave the way for the additional testing of combat aircraft, ships and ground vehicles, all part of a Pentagon effort known as the Assured Fuels Initiative that...