Air Force pushing conversion to fleet powered by liquefied coal

[babylonsister]

Air Force pushing conversion to fleet powered by liquefied coal
By Dave Montgomery | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008

Gregg Ellman / Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT


WASHINGTON — Squeezed by the soaring cost of oil-based jet fuel, the Air Force is converting its gas-guzzling fleet of aircraft to synthetic fuels and encouraging the creation of a liquefied coal industry that could tap the nation's vast coal reserves.

This could mean a lucrative new market for coal-producing states such as Wyoming, Kentucky, Montana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia. But advocates of liquefied coal face a counterattack from environmentalists in the debate over global warming and must prove that they can produce an ecologically friendly product with a low carbon footprint.

Air Force officials have been testing synthetic fuels based on coal or natural gas. They plan to certify the fleet of nearly 6,000 aircraft to fly on a 50-50 blend of synthetic fuel and traditional petroleum-based jet fuel by 2011.

Assistant Air Force Secretary Bill Anderson said the search for affordable, cleaner-burning alternative fuels was driven by economic and national security concerns. The Air Force wants to comply with President Bush's mandate to end America's dependence on foreign oil while escaping soaring fuel prices.

For the Air Force, which consumes more than half of all the fuel that the U.S. government uses, the cost of fueling fighters and transports is stratospheric. Every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil costs the Air Force another $600 million, Anderson said.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/31943.html

[DainBramaged]

1. Alll well and good, but why is Booshe continuing to fill the Strategic petroleum Reserves

with oil?? No one wants to talk about that boondogle any more.

http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directs the Secretary of Energy to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its authorized one billion barrel capacity. Consistent with that requirement, the DOE initiated proceedings to select sites necessary to expand the Reserve from its current capacity of 727 million barrels to one billion barrels and, after a 16-month long public process, released on December 8, 2006, the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Site Selection for Expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.