WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department has launched an effort to
reduce the military's reliance on traditional aircraft fuel.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has released a
tender for the exploration of energy alternatives for the military.
Officials said DARPA has sought proposals from companies and universities
that would increase fuel efficiency and produce biofuel for military jets from
agriculture or aquaculture crops.
"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,"
the agency said.
Officials said commercial alternatives to traditional fuel have not met
the higher energy density and wide-operating temperature range required for
military aviation uses. They said the Pentagon has designed a program
entitled BioFuels to convert crop oil to military aviation fuel, known as
JP-8. Those invited to participate in the competition would deliver at least
100 liters of JP-8 surrogate biofuel for initial government laboratory
testing.
On July 25, DARPA briefed prospective bidders on the program in Denver
Colo. The agency plans to achieve a 60 percent or greater conversion
efficiency of crop oil. Officials said the agency envisions increasing the
efficiency to 90 percent conversions.
So far, biodiesel fuels have been 25 percent lower in energy density
than JP-8. Officials said biodiesel did not flow properly at low
temperatures in the atmosphere.
"It is anticipated that the key technology developments needed to obtain
the program goal will result from a cross-disciplinary approach spanning the
fields of process chemistry and engineering, materials engineering,
biotechnology, and propulsion system engineering," the agency said.
Officials said the program would evaluate the processing of crop oils
into a JP-8 surrogate biofuel. They said laboratory-scale production would
be tested at a Pentagon facility.