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US B-1 bomber breaks sound barrier using synfuels as military steps up on biofuels

May 27, 2008

A US Air Force B-1 bomber mission, code named Dark 33, became the first jet to reach supersonic speeds using synthetic jet fuel. The test flight was carried out at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The project is one of several sponsored by the US military, which is the world’s largest consumer of fuel at a rate of more than 340,000 barrels per day and $13.6 billion per year. A Honeywell UOP biocrude project is underway with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA). Unconfirmed rumors have continued to circulate that a third project, with a “black budget”, is investigating the potential of biofuels to provide a less-detectable heat signature and make US aircraft more “stealthy”.

An ethanol-kerosene blend is a candidate for reducing combustion temperature and boosting power efficiency compared to kerosene or Jet-A fuel. The higher octane rating of ethanol would allow for more power to be generated, and could result in smaller engines for comparable payloads.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said that the BioFuels project has successfully passed through the first stage of laboratory testing. Project managers say that they expect to produce JP-8 jet fuel with a production cost of less than $3 per gallon, primarily from soy and camelina. The project will ultimately use a multi-feedstock approach with a non-food focus. Project management said that cellulosic feedstocks such as algae and waste biomass were two to three years away, and that the primary challenge to using algae was the feedstock cost. The United States Air Force has set a goal of producing 50 percent of its fuels by alternative means by 2016.

In March, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)., and Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called on the Department of Defense to comply with section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act by discontinuing purchase of fuel made from Canadian tar sands or US coal-to-liquid technology. The two sources of fuel are prohibited under the Act because of environmental impacts.

UOP, a division of Honeywell, announced last June that it expected to develop military aviation jet fuel, using a synthetic biocrude made from algae. The UOP project is backed by $6.7 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The program is currently outlined in a recently issued broad agency announcement and is known as The BioFuels program. The goal of the BioFuels program is to develop an affordable alternative production process that will achieve a 60 percent or greater conversion efficiency, by energy content, of crop oil to military aviation fuel (JP-8) and elucidate a path to 90 percent conversions.

DARPA seeks processes that use limited sources of external energy, that are adaptable to a range or blend of feedstock crop oils, and that produce process by-products that have ancillary manufacturing or industrial value.

Current biodiesel fuels are 25 percent lower in energy density than JP-8 and exhibit unacceptable cold- flow features at the lower extreme of the required JP-8 operating temperature range (minus 50 degrees F).

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    Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under Policy, Producer News 

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