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Fat Replaces Oil In F-16s
It looks like the military has finally figured out a way to combine Americans' love of french fries with their love of blowing stuff up. The Air Force says all of its 40-plus aircraft models will be able to burn biofuels by 2013, three years ahead of schedule. From the article: "The Army wants 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. The Navy and Marines aim to shift half their energy use from oil, gas and coal by 2020. 'Reliance on fossil fuels is simply too much of a vulnerability for a military organization to have,' U.S. Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus said in an interview. 'We’ve been certifying aircraft on biofuels. We’re doing solar and wind, geothermal, hydrothermal, wave, things like that on our bases.'”
Everyone should've switched to NTFS by now...
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
I don't think the 386 based autopilot can run a os that can uses NTFS
> The Navy and Marines aim to shift half their energy use from oil, gas and coal by 2020.
Didn't release you could run a F-16 on coal
The oil is being replaced by oil. This story is insulting to the intelligence.
If military vehicles remain dependent on the same traditional fuel, it will ultimately be the collapse of the US.
I'd never really thought of this, but it makes good sense both militarily and environmentally. Economically, well, it's clear the economic sustainability of the military has never really been important.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Damn, I AM a computer scientist and I love my android phone!
That way all the fat kids can still be pilots!
So, do they smell like french fries when they fly over like the converted volvos burning used fry oil?
greed@All_Evils:~#
All F-16's use F-100 (or F-110) engines, and without exception they all run on JP-8 fuel. Whatever the Air Force did, you can bet that they didn't change much. The concept that these engines are somehow eco-friendly is absurd, no matter what contributed the hydrocarbons that they are burning. At full afterburner, these engines can burn more than 20,000 pounds of fuel per minute .
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Wow, these guy's are way ahead of the Republican Presidential hopefuls, who I had the misfortune to watch on the glotz box last night. Every one of them repeated the tired old (Exon Mobile funded no doubt) mantra about drilling for good ole US oil, rather than do anything a bit more intelligent. Funny that the debate was also interspersed with those hilarious "clean coal" adverts. Clean coal, I laughed to much I wet my self.
I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning or, like a missle with those fries?
The Navy has recently announced that all of its aircraft carriers will soon be equipped with harpoon launchers. Hey, whale oil is renewable fuel too, okay ?
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
You don't want to be the guy in the back shoveling the coal while the plane does a barrel roll.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
This is a smart solution actually. They put those dead soldier bodies to use and save space in graveyards.
Plus, all fallen soldiers will now get a chance to fly in a fighter. Really cool.
Leela: Gas was an environmental disaster, anyway. Now we use alternative fuels.
Fry: Like what?
Leela: Whale oil.
USA has an obesity problem (too much sugar), so I can see an ad: "Are you a REAL PATRIOT? Be all you can be - get a liposuction!"
You can't handle the truth.
I wish they had told me about this!
They could have switched all the planes to natural gas!
I have a great chili recipe to donate to the cause of America's defense.
Because, I sir, am a Patriot!
Its constructive in a carbon balance way; fossil fuels are releasing carbon stored in the earth's subsurface in the form of CO2, throwing off the atmospheric balance. Plants and animals are recycling atmospheric CO2 into organic matter, which when combusted returns to CO2, producing no net atmospheric change.
Obese Americans can finally serve their country!
Biofuels will supplement, but never replace oil for the military. Frankly, I doubt there's enough of it to be significant. Maybe if the military used ALL the biofuel produced in the continental USA, it could continue to operate... in the continental USA.
That all being said, I don't have any figures on how much fuel the USA's military uses per day. The entire USA uses about 7 to 8 million barrels of oil a day, depending on what sort of day we're having. Anyone know how much of that is the military's share?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
It's always boggled my mind how the greens and the left never play the national security card when it comes to alternative energy. It doesn't even have to make any sense either, it just has to sound good.
DoD embarked on a major program about ten years ago to get all DoD equipment running on one fuel: JP-8 with a corrosion inhibitor. This will work in jet engines, diesels, and heaters. DoD has been using some biodiesel, and it has to meet the specs for JP-8. That's what this is about.
DoD has been almost all diesel for years. Gasoline tankers have no place on today's battlefields, where there's no secure rear area.
Biofuel costs even more fossil fuels to produce.. As far as I know most of those farmers still use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Of course this isn't necessary, but it doesn't help that Monsanto has a big hand in the government and sues an organic farmer every week or so.
Sustainable warfare, that is comforting...
With objective journalists, activists, and Ron Paul supporters all going on fusion-center/DHS/FBI watch-lists, there might soon be a surplus. Maybe instead of a debtors prison, they'll just squeeze out some fat from all the pizza-stuffed college students who can't pay their loans. Or - considering the success of the "Freedom Fry" anomaly - perhaps patriotism can be exploited to encourage voluntary liposuction. I'm sure a good 20 minute Fox broadcast could inspire millions.
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
Not fighting in meaningless wars
Not teaching soldiers shit they will never use
Using simulators instead of live training exercises especially in conjunction with #1
How will we defend ourselves? Well there's them oceans, and the ICBMs, and last but not least, the nukes.
A key part of the summary is "able to burn". Current prices for actual bio-fuel qualified for aviation use is astronomical, so DoD's venture into actual bio-fuel is primarily meant as proof of concept and part of the greater government intent to spur biofuel development so someday it might be cheap enough to use. BTW, one of the DoD requirements for the bio-fuel is that it cannot come from an edible food crop (no corn ethanol).
But another DoD alt fuel initiative that is more mature is non-petroleum fuel, specifically fuel made from coal. Fischer–Tropsch method can make fuel from coal, natural gas, etc, and at competitive prices potentially. Unfortunately makes more greenhouse gases than petroleum, but it can be generated domestically.
From Wikipedia:
U.S. Air Force certificationSyntroleum, a publicly traded US company (Nasdaq: SYNM) has produced over 400,000 US gallons (1,500 m3) of diesel and jet fuel from the Fischer–Tropsch process using natural gas and coal at its demonstration plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Syntroleum is working to commercialize its licensed Fischer-Tropsch technology via coal-to-liquid plants in the US, China, and Germany, as well as gas-to-liquid plants internationally. Using natural gas as a feedstock, the ultra-clean, low sulfur fuel has been tested extensively by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Most recently, Syntroleum has been working with the U.S. Air Force to develop a synthetic jet fuel blend that will help the Air Force to reduce its dependence on imported petroleum. The Air Force, which is the U.S. military's largest user of fuel, began exploring alternative fuel sources in 1999. On December 15, 2006, a B-52 took off from Edwards AFB, California for the first time powered solely by a 50–50 blend of JP-8 and Syntroleum's FT fuel. The seven-hour flight test was considered a success. The goal of the flight test program is to qualify the fuel blend for fleet use on the service's B-52s, and then flight test and qualification on other aircraft. The test program concluded in 2007. This program is part of the Department of Defense Assured Fuel Initiative, an effort to develop secure domestic sources for the military energy needs. The Pentagon hopes to reduce its use of crude oil from foreign producers and obtain about half of its aviation fuel from alternative sources by 2016.[19] With the B-52 now approved to use the FT blend, the C-17 Globemaster III, the B-1B, and eventually every airframe in its inventory to use the fuel by 2011.[19][20]
Their planes ran on butanol 75 years ago, a byproduct of ABE production that yielded acetone for cordite manufacture. It was the worlds second largest biotech industry to ethanol for almost a century, but no one seems to notice how it's gone away. I don't want to blame the petrochemical craze started in the 1960s for deliberately outshining renewable and sustainable alternative fuel sources, but a ton of greased and greedy sons of bitches making decisions with their wallets later and I'd be remiss not to mention it.
Save the planet! By 2020, all intercontinental nukes have to run on bio fuel! Imagine them being used and span the globe with poisonous fuel exhaust!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
but it did not have a autopilot load on top of it much less have to run a missile systems as well.
Also f-16 as in 16 bit? does NT run in 16 bit mode?
This sounds like the usual Liberal Political Correctness excrement. We produce oil in this country and in times of war the military is First in line to get theirs. Trying to set up an alternative parallel biofuel supply system seems nothing more than an attempt to warm the cockles of Michelle Obama's heart. Rather like when my Democratic U.S. House Representative was asking about why the military wasn't using solar power for their bases in Afghanistan. Pure B.S. that only makes our military's mission even harder than it has to be.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I am not sure but I would think that M-1 Abrams' multi-fuel engine can already use biofuel. Honeywell doesn't mention it on their product page.
It would be something if, after invading at least one country for oil, we started running so terribly low on oil in spite of the invasion that we had to put up solar panels on the bases we built in the invaded country.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That _was_ one of the issues that Nazi Germany's economy/industry eventually couldn't deal with.
This was an also an issue in the Pacific - Japan doesn't have a native supply of petroleum either. For instance, a mid-1941 US embargo was a key event in the pre-Pearl Harbor timeline.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Um, that is what you call it, right?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Environmentalism often seems a left-wing thing, military enthusiasm often seems a right-wing thing. (There is common ground and crossover, but maybe not enough for critical mass of a synthesis like this.)
For example:
during the process of repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell: some pro-gay doves seemed confused (as well as anti-gay hawks for that matter)
Om my campus, the Environmental Science offices are right next to the ROTC offices. (One of the enviro sci profs pointed out that military secure areas often incidentally end up as nature preserves.)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
In addition to US involvement aka future wars over countries with natural resources that the US *wants*, *needs*, aka oil... future US wars could now include countries with the highest BMI (body mass index). Now, what countries produce the most French, er, Freedom Fries and should now fear their future?
I searched "peak oil" in the 140+ comments of this story. Nothing!
I find it quite surprising...
The first thing that came to my mind:
At last! US army is aware of the peak oil and started moving away from fossil fuels.
it should be frenched fries, not french. Just call them plain fries or ' freedom fries' or whatever... :p
Do a little research - this has nothing to do with fries. Solazyme is a company that's making biofuels the right way - from algae. It is sustainable, it does work, and you don't need cropland for it.
And convert all our vehicles to run on the bodies of the fallen.
... the Navy and Marine Corps don't operate any F-16's [/airplane_nazi]
Where the hell are we going to get enough bio-diesel to make even a dent in the amount of dino-diesel the military uses? I used to serve on a Navy oiler. We carried something like 3.5 million gallons of marine diesel and another 3.5 million gallons of JP-5 (essentially highly purified diesel), and we went through it at a pretty good clip while on a deployment. I'm pretty sure that there's not enough french-fry grease in the universe to replace any significant part of this.
This is not to say that we shouldn't try to move away from fossil fuels, but I'm pretty sure none of the solutions mentioned (waste grease, camelina, etc) could possibly scale to an extent that would accomplish anything.
... that the Navy's air force is almost as big as the Air Force's air force.
Biofuel means that per each pound of carbon burned, an equal amount is absorbed by plants. It closes the cycle. No carbon (petroleum) is removed from the ground and turned into carbon dioxide. Even if it was a fossil fuel, still contribution of aviation into the total greenhouse gas emissions of the world is only 2%. Second, it's a pure myth that biofuels would be worse than petroleum derivatives. With modern technology, they're better. In fact, Neste Oil is producing isomerized alkane fuel from vegetable oil that, if blended with petrodiesel, makes it better. The cetane number and cloud points are better, and there are no heteroatoms (oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, what have you). The chemical composition is defined exactly by the plant source and the processing steps, whereas oil refining is all about separating all that extra crap contained in natural petroleum and carefully reformulating the rest of the partially decomposed plant waste into something only slightly less objectionable. I'd imagine that the military would be delighted to switch to a better diesel fuel (compared to JP-8) even if it cost a few cents per gallon more.