Mil Tech — JP-8 From Algae
Apr 27 2009
Military jet fuel is petroleum based, but that hasn’t stopped a military research agency from looking farther afield to determine if it can be produced through other means — by algae, for instance.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., is reviewing potential research projects under its Biofuels-Cellulosic and Algal Feedstock program to produce a JP-8 type fuel from algae.
But there’s a big catch — energy-dense biofuel oil has to be made at a cost competitive with petroleum-derived fuels, according to Jan Walker, DARPA special assistant for external relations. She points out that DARPA seeks to produce a surrogate JP-8 costing less than $3 a gallon at a production rate of 50 million gallons a year.
The algae derivative program initially will demonstrate production of algae triglyceride, a precursor to JP-8, at a projected cost of $2 a gallon. Walker expects contractors to get the algae triglyceride production cost down to $1 a gallon in phase 2 of the program.
However, there are technical challenges facing the project.
Algae typically is grown and harvested from large pools (raceways) or large tanks (photobioreactors). Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.
The raceways can be expanded readily to large-scale operations, lowering the per gallon cost, but they produce a lower energy density algal oil. On the other hand, bioreactors allow for better environmental control and generally produce higher energy density oil, but are more expensive to operate.
Besides algal oils, the DARPA effort is investigating processes to convert various vegetable oils to JP-8, such as soy, palm canola, and coconut oils.
The long-term DARPA project seeks to use any newly developed fuel not only for U.S. Air Force warplanes but also as an option for U.S. Army vehicles, which would simplify the supply chain.
About the author: Alan M. Petrillo is a Tucson, Ariz., freelance writer who works in a wide variety of fields, writing for national and regional magazines and newspapers. He’s also the author of the historical mystery, Full Moon.
