U.S. Air Force testing coal powered planes

Houston-based company Accelergy has begun production of biojet fuel using a mix of Camelina oil and liquefied coal for evaluation by the US Air Force (USAF).

The company says it has come up with a way to convert the coal into an economical, clear, and arguably clean form of jet fuel.

The company will initially try to sell fuel to the U.S. military -- the Air Force has already begun initial testing -- and has also started to field inquiries from China and some commercial aircraft and engine manufacturers. Biomass can also be substituted for coal, or at least part of it, in the recipe, depending on the desired characteristics of the final fuel.

The Department of Defense will likely set its standards for synthetic jet fuels in 2013, and CEO Tim Vail claims that Accelergy's fuel will be able to meet those standards.

“Accelergy is the first to provide 100 percent synthetic jet fuel for the USAF with high thermal stability, increased energy density, lower environmental impact and competitive costs,” said Tim Vail, CEO of Accelergy. “With the production of these fuels that utilize carbon as a feedstock, we are one step closer to setting a benchmark for the industry, as well as commercializing our fuels.

In 2009, Accelergy entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with USAF for testing fully synthetic fuels that meet or exceed USAF JP-8 military jet fuel standards.

USAF currently uses JP-8 fuel in all of its aircraft and has been looking for a commercially viable 100% synthetic alternative to petroleum based fuels. To date, synthetic fuels have required blending with petroleum feedstocks on a 50% basis to be suitable in aviation applications.

Accelergy will use its coal-biomass-to-liquids technology at a pilot facility under construction at the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) University of North Dakota.

Fuel deliveries to the Air Force Research Labs will begin in late 2010. The pilot facility will provide a valuable tool for evaluating new coal and biomass feeedstocks as the technology moves toward commercial deployment.

“The facility at EERC allows us to produce meaningful quantities of fuel, confirm our performance estimates and further refine our fuel product,” Vail said. “With the test results in hand, the Air Force and defense contractors can then explore the full range of options for employment and advanced synthetic fuels in next-generation aircraft designs.”

The key is a process fine-tuned at ExxonMobil in the mid-1990s that turns coal or plant matter directly into a liquid, according to Vail. Unlike the often-criticized Fischer-Tropsch process devised in the 1920s, Accelergy's process does not get convert coal into a synthetic gas before transforming it into a liquid. Eliminating gasification greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions, as well as the total amount of coal (or biomass) consumed to produce liquids, he said. And it's cost-effective.

"You can be profitable in the $50-to-$60-a-barrel range," extrapolating from the mathematical models devised by Exxon in the '90s, Vail said. "In the crude environment we have today, you have the opportunity to create a very favorable business."