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US Navy Tries To Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel
Hugh Pickens writes "New Scientist reports that, faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US Navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater by processing seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen — obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity — to make a hydrocarbon fuel, a variant of a chemical reaction called the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is used commercially to produce a gasoline-like hydrocarbon fuel from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen often derived from coal. The Navy team have been experimenting to find out how to steer the CO2-producing process away from producing unwanted methane by finding a different catalyst than the usual one based on cobalt. 'The idea of using CO2 as a carbon source is appealing,' says Philip Jessop, a chemist at Queen's University adding that to make a jet fuel that is properly 'green,' the energy-intensive electrolysis that produces the hydrogen will need to use a carbon-neutral energy source; and the complex multi-step process will always consume significantly more energy than the fuel it produces could yield. 'It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.'"
...they could just hire Jesus.
But it's easy to put a nuclear reactor in a ship, and not so easy to put one in a fighter jet.
Brett
Nuclear powered aircraft carrier, so you've got a pretty good supply of energy there, being able to convert electricity into jet fuel would save them money and reduce the amount of fuel they have to carry (reducing the amount of flammable liquids held in a ship that might get hit by a missile), and could end the need to resupply fuel, all in all very sexy if you're going in to combat.
For the life of me I can't see how this will be cost effective or environmentally friendly.
I know sometime in the future there will be scarcity of oil, or peak oil (if we aren't there yet) but no-one seriously thinks that there will be so little fuel that a navy ship won't be supplied for many decades.
Oil will become relatively more scarce through time, but at some point I think it will cease being used in cars and turbines, and used only for niche machinery and for making plastics. By the time there is no oil left for navy ships, I am betting another fuel source will have come along.
Also, from TFA:
"CO2's abundance, combined with concerns about global warming, make it an attractive potential feedstock, Dorner says. Although the gas forms only a small proportion of air - around 0.04 per cent - ocean water contains about 140 times that concentration, he says."
Can someone smarter than me explain how it addresses concerns about global warming to get the highly CO2-concentrated sea water, convert it into fuel, that presumably is then sent via an exhaust stack into the air? Isn't it just like mining coal and sending it into the air, except this plan uses carbon in the oceans?
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Methane is a good fuel in its own right. Using solar power this could be a good general source of transportable energy.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It removes CO2 from the water, where it will eventually return through the same process that put it there in the first place.
jet aircraft (each costing millions), runs on jet fuel, not methane
But rockets (and rocket planes) do Carmack and Armadillo Aerospace have been doing just that for NASA.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Thermodynamically a huge waste.
This has got nothing to do with creating free energy, and it's got nothing to do with environmentalism. It's all about military strategy.
Your nuclear-powered carrier fleet is on patrol in a war zone. Resupply convoys are a risky business. How do you keep your planes in the air without a constant supply of jet fuel?
You make your own on board. Who cares if it's "thermodynamically a huge waste"? You've got a freaking NUCLEAR REACTOR. It's got plenty of energy to spare, all you gotta do is repackage that energy into a form that can be poured into an aircraft fuel tank.
If you think i'm going to sign that, you're crazy.
So it may actually be more efficient thermodynamically.
Deleted
Wind power has lots of advantages, but one major drawback - it is intermittent. If you have an industry which is very energy intensive but has low capital cost, this presents an opportunity: build your plant, and run it only when the wind is blowing and power is very cheap. This works especially well if your product is easily storable.
This process is clearly energy intensive and produces an easily storable product - whether it has the required low capital cost is much less clear. (Although the interest of the navy suggests they're wanting to use aircraft carrier nuclear power, but once developed it could find wind-powered civilian use.)
Water desalination and aluminium smelting might also qualify (I don't know the capital costs of these). Recharging electric cars certainly does (given that you're buying the car anyhow), except that you have a very limited storage capacity.
Despite not being low capital, data centres are even starting to go this way, being built with the intention of only running them when electricity is cheap (or less is required for air conditioning.) In this case the product is extremely transportable rather than easily storable.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Jet Fuel?
Pfffft.
I can turn large amounts of beer in to even larger amounts of urine, so what?
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
Perhaps they plan to build carriers with larger reactors that have greater output than the needs of the ship itself, so that the excess output can be used to power a small on-board jet fuel production plant? In that scenario, who cares if the energy required outweighs the work done by the resulting fuel?
Um, why don't they just use the hydrogen as fuel? (of course, they might need to make modifications to current aircraft or even make new aircraft - but this is the military, they have money to burn) Then they could use solar & wind power to make it and we could use their technology for civilian purposes and everyone would love one another and we'd live in a utopian dreamworld. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article5907888.ece
There is laboratory proven - and efficient - technology of converting CO2 (from factories' chimneys) into metane. Technology was developed by prof. Dobieslaw Nazimek. They are trying to implement it in large scale, at the cost about USD 200M per one factory like carbon energy plant. There are 2 main problems: cleaning fumes and finding brave investor.
-- Sneer
> in this day and age, why are we still making war machines? most countries have all signed peace > treaties and the only ones that are still actively pointing their heads into other peoples
> business is america, the uk and some of their allies.
Russia has done so recently, some consider the Chinese occupation of Tibet "pointing their heads into other peoples business", there are pirates in Somalia, various genocides in Africa, radical Islam still converting by the sword, not to mention all of the conflicts between whatever bosses are in power beating up whatever people over whom they have power and those people trying to be the bosses. Humans are murderous; deal with it.
> as cool as it would be to have jets that run on sea water, i think they should rather be
> looking at other, more peaceful, applications.
The US Navy has a need, so they're doing the research. Unless they classify the whatever useful catalyst(s) they find (not entirely unlikely), you could be making jet fuel at Narita, or any of several other airports right on the ocean (using wave/tidal power), saving the energy costs of fuel transport. Los Angeles has several major airports in the region, and an ocean not far from at least two of them
sorry, i forgot to add russia to the list. the problem is that this is somewhat of an endless cycle. russia is not going to disarm until they see that evil capitalist america has done so, and visa versa. but obviously someone needs to take the first step.
this technology, if successful, can be put to a lot of good use in other fields. but what bugs me is that america's first idea is: "let's use it to power our war machines".
i'm not saying america (and all countries) should get rid of their armies completely, but instead, they should divert most of their army's funds to research of this kind, for the "right" reasons (whatever "right" might be).
and seriously, does the us really need jets for fighting the pirates and/or genecide in africa? that just seems like overkill to me. and should they actually be the so called "police" of world? don't they have enough problems of their own back in the us?
Something that's essentially an unshielded nuclear reactor with wings and two dozen megaton nukes, flying at low altitude with Mach 3, really isn't a laughing matter.
Look at this
I'd think it'd be faster to scoop up biomass and use the carbon from that, instead of extracting it from seawater. Or, use coal (not green, but green isn't the intent). Coal stored on board as a feedstock for carbon would take up less room than the jet fuel, be less hazardous, and not require splitting the O2 from the CO2, potentially making the manufacturing process simpler. Plus resupplying coal would likely be simpler, just bags and cargo netting...attach line, toss it overboard and winch it aboard, no need for ship-to-ship plumbing.
90 milligrams of CO2 per kilo of seawater, amounts to 28 parts per million of carbon.
1000 kilos of carbon would require about 36 million liters of seawater to be processed. Or just a cubic meter or two of coal.
I'd wager they'd have some sort of burner unit to incinerate ship waste and sewage to recover carbon.
It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.
Well, that's not good because it sounds pretty damn complicated as it is. That said, I'm not a chemist, but still - it sure as hell doesn't sound simple...
Really? Turning sea water into jet fuel is more complicated than it looks? Cause from here it looks pretty freaking complicated.
Life needs more saving throws.
EROEI isn't particularly relevant when you are driving around with an (essentially) arbitrarily sized nuclear reactor and a very limited supply of liquid jet fuel.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
1 - capture the Methane, and bottle it. This is called "natural gas", and is a great fuel, assuming you don't mind it being a Gas, not a liquid. I'm sure the Navy can figure out how to power fighter planes with this stuff directly, ... if they really have to.
IIRC the trouble with methane is it's small/light molecules make it a PITA to liquify and store liquid (which are nessacery for high density storage).
It can be done on a ship as evidenced by the LNG tankers that are now carrying methane arround the world (maybe they could use it to supply the carriers support ships) but I suspect it would be weight prohibitive for aircraft.
2 - use Steam Reforming ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming ) to convert the methane to SynGas, then to Synfuel. Easy. Just ask Mobil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synfuel
But that would add yet more inefficiancy and complexity to the process.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
They say they want a better source for CO2 than the sea water...
If only there were some source for CO2 that was readily available. One which is rich in CO2, *breathe* or even had a surplus. *breathe* We could even help to reduce the quantity of CO2 in this source that might have too much due to pollution... *breathe*
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a source as plentiful as the air we breathe...
Steam reforming is the opposite of the process you need. It does this:
Hydrocarbon + water -> hydrogen + CO
You want to *make* hydrocarbons, not destroy them. The Synfuel process you link to is the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is exactly what the Navy is doing. The trick is tuning it to make only the *right* hydrocarbons.
I disagree. If you do it right, war has a *great* energy return on energy invested. You invest a little energy in building ships and planes and guns, a little more energy to fuel them, and then you go off and conquer a gigantic oilfield which provides energy for your entire nation for decades.
That was one of the Germans' big plans for World War II anyway. Turns out it's a high-risk investment.
The US Navy is doing the research. What the hell do you think they are going to use it for?
The process requires a tremendous amount of energy and seawater. Where else are you going to find that combination except on a nuclear-powered ocean-going vessel?
You are a naive idiot.
Or possibly you're the greatest idiot to ever grace slashdot. While that's not all that likely, you certainly rank near the top (bottom?).
So, did anyone else who has seen District 9 start to laugh about halfway through the summary? It sounds about as complicated as the process the Prawns use to make fuel for their spaceships -- and probably has about as high a yield, too.
Yeah, why would we need weapons, after all the Kellog-Briand pact outlawed war just shy of 80 years ago? It's been working so well, I'm surprised there are any weapons left in the world.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The navy's idea sounds bad. However, DotyEnergy, likely the source of the Navy's ideas, has a system that is 60% end to end efficienct for making fules using a highly modified (with over 60 patents) RWGS/RFTS process. They've been working on refinements to it for decades and are working on a mid scale POC faciltiy to come online and finally prove this to the world.
Fuel from wind, water, and CO2 inputs ar $60-80/bbl in a 100% carbon nuetral process.
I don;t care if the energy is negative, if the energy is 100% renewable and does not contrubute to CO2 output.
http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
There goes all our water...
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Oh, perhaps to crush a government sitting on top of oil or other resources deemed indispensible by the American War Machine and its nutty consumerist inhabitants? And why would they bomb one of these nations to flinders? Because it would work against the export land model, freeing up oil to the market that the USA can then steal to keep the suburbs expanding and the war machine rolling...
So, how much oil did we steal from Iraq? Where do I sign up to get my free "occupancy fuel"?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You have to understand, with the Bush Junta there was no "we". There were corporate interests. Period. Which is much the same as saying "gangland interests". In this case, oil corporations wanted access to the fields to the exclusion of Russia, China, and Europe. The invasion was so badly bungled, and the "peace" that followed was so deeply suboptimal, that the USA oil companies didn't get nearly what they wanted, and now the French and the Russians are back...
You should read "Resource Wars" by prof. Michael T Klare. He goes into great detail on this subject. Another good one is "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin.
cheers.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It seems that nuclear bombs are not an effective way of clearing a large chunk of land when the military needs to to this.
I mean, why doesn't the US/Israel/UK use nuclear munitions to "solve" the problem of the Iranian nuclear program? Its not like the Middle Eastern Arab neighbors of Persian Iran are that crazy about Iran, and who could threaten a counterstrike, although I suppose oil going to $500/barrel could be an economic counterstrike.
There must be an informal "Great Convention" in effect that there would be serious consequences (complete alienation from the international community with the accompanying economic ruin) to any use of "atomics", even in a kind of "surgical strike."
So, apart from a last-ditch option when a country has their backs against the wall, from a military standpoint nuclear bombs are thoroughly ineffective.
I know that this idea is targeted at military applications, not commercial ones, but let's just see.
Just spitballing some numbers:
Assume the manufacturer can afford to spend up to about $2.00/gallon on electricity to make the fuel.
Gasoline has an energy capacity of about 40kWh/gallon.
The manufacturer can afford to pay up to $0.05/kWh, if the process is 100% efficient.
One thing that this idea has going for it is that it can operate whenever power is available, and suspend when power is not available. So the manufacturer can probably get an extremely good deal on power.
Seems to me that it enters the range of commercial feasibility at about 25% efficiency.
http://xkcd.com/756//
Anyone else get the picture of a drunken sailor connecting a bilge pump to a Jets fuel tank....maybe I have watched 1 too many 3 stooges movie.
for the coal powered electric plant that produces the electricity to turn that salt water into clean jet fuel.
...adding that to make a jet fuel that is properly 'green', the energy-intensive electrolysis that produces the hydrogen will need to use a carbon-neutral energy source; and the complex multi-step process will always consume significantly more energy than the fuel it produces could yield. 'It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.'"
Aren't modern aircraft carriers nuclear powered? If so, I would imagine that the process would indeed be carbon-neutral and that the amount of energy consumed would be immaterial. However, never having been on an aircraft carrier, I could be completely mistaken on either or both of those points.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
You have noticed that China is becoming VERY friendly with the kingdom (and vice-versa). yes?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Fuel tender for destroyers, etc. That could generate fuel for many other ships that we have elected to not run as nukes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But that is it. That is ALL IT IS. So, why do you claim that dotyenergy is brilliant, while the navy is nothing by idiots?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When I was in the Navy (64-67) they often managed to contaminate the drinking water with jet fuel. Maybe that was their beta test?
Nevermind. I misread.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Spare me! New Scientist == National Enquirer for Pseudo-Science. This process would take many times more energy that the resultant fuel could ever produce.
Converting carbon chains into fuel is feasible. The technique the Navy is relying on local sources of electricity dependant on generating devices such as nuclear, hydrothermal, & gasoline I suspect. There is another method... ALGAE -----> FUEL Don't believe me? Check the website video out... http://cc.pubco.net/www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index.html