The fuel gap solutions

FutureTank

Banned Member
We all know that oil-based fuels are nearing their end of affordability and soon their availability also. At some stage there will be a gap at which using oil-based fuels will become prohibitive, but their replacement technology will be still too expensive or even unavailable beyond experimental stage. How do armed forces fill this gap and compensate for it in terms of strategy, operational and tactical employment of forces?

One suggestion is the return of the gunboat diplomacy, with nuclear powered warships mounting very long range precision guided missiles fulfilling the gap and creating a far less flexible strategic solution for national scope of 'negotiable' options in international relationships.

Another suggestion is the return of the knight mounted on a genetically modified mount with higher strength and endurance, clad in Kevlar body armour just like its rider, who is in turn armed with far more potent arms then a lance.

The suggestion for the air forces is a return to helium filled platforms moving very slow, but carrying a much larger assortment of much more high powered ordnance much higher in the atmosphere, complemented by swarms of pilotless long endurance gliders fulfilling many of the roles of specialized piloted aircraft today as a sort of distributed aerial network.

Outlandish, unlikely, improbable?

Comments are welcome :)

Cheers
Greg
 
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gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
We all know that oil-based fuels are nearing their end of affordability and soon their availability also. At some stage there will be a gap at which using oil-based fuels will become prohibitive, but their replacement technology will be still too expensive or even unavailable beyond experimental stage. How do armed forces fill this gap and compensate for it in terms of strategy, operational and tactical employment of forces?

One suggestion is the return of the gunboat diplomacy, with nuclear powered warships mounting very long range precision guided missiles fulfilling the gap and creating a far less flexible strategic solution for national scope of 'negotiable' options in international relationships.

Another suggestion is the return of the knight mounted on a genetically modified mount with higher strength and endurance, clad in Kevlar body armour just like its rider, who is in turn armed with far more potent arms then a lance.

The suggestion for the air forces is a return to helium filled platforms moving very slow, but carrying a much larger assortment of much more high powered ordnance much higher in the atmosphere, complemented by swarms of pilotless long endurance gliders fulfilling many of the roles of specialized piloted aircraft today as a sort of distributed aerial network.

Outlandish, unlikely, improbable?

Comments are welcome :)

Cheers
Greg
ask me in 6 weeks time and i can give you a partial answer. :rolleyes: my company is about to invest in a new american tech for hydrocarbon based engines.
 

Tasman

Ship Watcher
Verified Defense Pro
ask me in 6 weeks time and i can give you a partial answer. :rolleyes: my company is about to invest in a new american tech for hydrocarbon based engines.
I realise we will need to wait 6 weeks for details but when you talk about hydrocarbon based engines are you looking at engines that will run on products along the lines of methane or are you talking about something totally different?

I understand if you can't answer for commercial reasons.

Cheers
 

LancerMc

New Member
Don't forget that the USAF recently test flew a B-52 on natural gas made from coal. While crude is becoming harder to come by, coal is still very much plentiful. Coal Gasification plants will produce natural gas that will allow jets to fly in the next generation. In the long run an other technology will have to develop to supplement the scarity of fossil fuels. Skunks works is developing a large AWACS SIGNIT blimp. So the future is coming...
 

EnigmaNZ

New Member
I was reading a little while ago of a US company that has a system for converting coal directly into liquid fuels without going through the gasification stage. IHI I think, the Chinese are already building a plant using the tech. From what I remember a ton of coal converts to about 4 barrels of liquid fuel. Now the US is about 10 million bpd short of oil. To replace that would require about a billion tons a year of coal. The US already uses several billion tons a year, mostly in electricity production, and has enough deposits to last it through several centuries. So a coal based primary energy future is quite on the cards. I'm ignoring the greenhouse effects, prosuming sequesting the CO2 will be viable by then.
 

Falstaff

New Member
IMHO coal gasification is a desperate stop gap measure at best.

There are several problems with fossil fuels:
1. Oil, gas and coal consumption is rising steadily, not so much in the western world but in all developing countries, especially China and India, and it will continue rising as the people in these countries long for mobility, energy and wealth
2. At the same time new supplies aren't found in sufficient numbers any more
3. Exploiting existing oil fields gets more and more expensive and technologically challenging
4. which then brings in alternative and rather expensive oil sources like oil sands and coal, but they too are limited ressources, as is uranium. Yes, there still are huge reserves of coal and natural gas left, but how long will they last if there is no oil left?
5. And then there's the environment. I will not ignore the fact that any of these fuels can not be used CO2-neutral. They were buried long time ago and now you dig them out and burn them...
6. And doesn't it frighten you that perhaps already your grandchildren will not have sufficient oil and gas supplies any more? That they are gone for all time and will never ever return?
7. Many people now find out they are not so much against nuclear power any more, as it's relatively "clean" (if you leave out the nuclear waste that we will bury deep underground for the coming generations to find and deal with later). But how long will uranium supplies last if everyone suddenly switches to nuclear power? Some say 40, some say 60 years. I don't know.

I do know that we have to do something, but it will be a slow and steady progress instead of an energy revolution.
As to military applications I think we will first see a rise in efficiency of conventional engines. There still is some potential regarding combustion engines.
So first of all (10-15 years from now) Tanks, trucks etc. will be fitted with more efficient and clean diesel hybrid engines. Fuel supply will diversify and include a certain amount of bio diesel made from plants.
The second step will be the fuel cell and full electrification for smaller vehicles. Today's and future power plants are much more efficient and clean than the engines mounted on vehicles, so it makes sense. We will substitute fossil fuels to a certain amount (perhaps as much as 20%) step by step by renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy. Fuel cells are used on our U-212A subs with great success and development is stepping ahead. In the distant future we'll hopefully see the fusion reactor producing clean and cheap electricity for all applications. Then it doesn't make sense at all to have another than an elctric drive any more.
For ships I think the fuel cell ist the way to go, perhaps coupled with new technology sailing ships for non military applications. Given some years of development and problem solving the fuel cell might be able to provide sufficient power even for large ships. I think the age of nuclear powered ships will be over some time.
What I cannot imagine is that there is a replacement for the kerosene driven trubine for planes. It simply is unrivalled in terms of weight and power output. Well, their efficiency will rise too, there still is some potential. But after that? I don't know.
 

EnigmaNZ

New Member
Durring the oil shock of a couple of decades ago, a number of alternative schemes were enacted to lesson dependence on oil, in particular arab oil after they tried to hold the world to ransome. All of these schemes had one thing in common, they required oil to be priced over $US40 a barrel at the time to be economical. They included coal to liquid fuels, gas to petrol, shale oil and tar sand oil extraction etc. Here in NZ we spent a billion or so on a natural gas to petrol plant. The oil producers quickly reined in their prices and dropped them to the point where the alternative schemes became uneconomic and closed. Before the lastest ME war, oil was priced about $30 or so. At the current prices it is economic to reinstate the earlier schemes, but noone is going to invest if there is a chance oil prices will again drop and undercut them. So it is very much a waiting game. However with China's and India's rapid rise in their middle class all wanting cars, and the US's relentless love affair with gas guzzlers, the chance of oil dropping back to $30 seems increasingly slim. when developers and investors are sure they won't get burnt, you will see big money going into alternatives, if only for the profit motive.

So whats available, the US has over a trillion tons of available coal, converted to liquid fuels it can go for centuries at it's current rate of use. Newer processes are already being fielded and built in countries such as China to wean itself off imported oil, google for detail. Canada has more oil, a lot more oil, than Saudi, only it is tied up in sand and shale. Again it is being processed in smaller quantities at the moment, but Canada will become a major exporter in the future. Venezsular has as much oil as Saudi tied up in shale and as very heavy crude which needs help to extract, but it is there, and so on. On the gas side, research is ongoing into hydrates, which in NZ are not only vast, but in swallower water than deposits elsewhere so foreign companies are here now looking at them for eventual extraction. On a world wide scale hydrates drawf other sources of gas by a wide margin.

On the renewable side, biofuel will come less from land based sources than water and sea, huge plantations of kelp, fast growing and having vastly higher yeilds than land based farmed crops for conversion, huge manmade algae lakes, a company here in NZ has just patented a process for turning algae into biofuel and is looking for investors. Several times recently NZ has had a algae bloom round it's coast covering thousands of square kilometers, it was seen as a nuisance, but one day may be the source of bioenergy. Recently a hugh slab of hot granite was discovered in the center of Australia, heated from below, it was reported that it could one day be used in dry rock geothermal developments to produce more energy than contained in the oil Saudi exports, the fiqure 4 times more was used, the size of this slab, over 250 square kilometers of 200 degree hot rock waiting to be ultilized.

Then there is the new generation safe passive and proliferation proof nuclear reactors on the drawing boards, thorium reactors, which India is doing a lot of research into, one advantage over uranium based is that the fuel source is enormous unlike Uranium, then there is fusion, the first fusion plant that is expected to actually break even in that it produces more energy than it consumes, is about to be built and has countries lining up to be the first to host it. And so on.

Have fun googling and researching, spend less time listening to the doom and gloom merchants.
 

EnigmaNZ

New Member
Forgot to add, the US is already running some of it's B-52's on biofuel as a test, turbines can run on a variety of fuels, biodiesel included, the possible problem is energy content, if the energy of the alternate fuel is less than the special military fuel in current use, the range of aircraft will drop significantly, it also has to operate over wide temperature extremes and flow well whether on the ground or at 50,000 feet.

Hmm, another point, the current love affair with ethanol as a petrol replacement, ethanol is a poor subsitute, it is low octane, has a low energy content, soaks up any water it comes in contact with etc, a better and recently found alternative is butanol which is much more like petrol.

"How does butanol compare with ethanol as an alternative fuel?

Butanol has many superior properties as an alternative fuel when compared to ethanol. These include:

· Higher energy content (110,000 Btu’s per gallon for butanol vs. 84,000 Btu per gallon for ethanol). Gasoline contains about 115,000 Btu’s per gallon.

· Butanol is six times less "evaporative" than ethanol and 13.5 times less evaporative than gasoline, making it safer to use as an oxygenate in Arizona, California and other states, thereby eliminating the need for very special blends during the summer and winter months.

· Butanol can be shipped through existing fuel pipelines where ethanol must be transported via rail, barge or truck

· Butanol can be used as a replacement for gasoline gallon for gallon e.g. 100%, or any other percentage. Ethanol can only be used as an additive to gasoline up to about 85% and then only after significant modifications to the engine. Worldwide 10% ethanol blends predominate."

"http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/05/bio-butanol.html"
 

Falstaff

New Member
Have fun googling and researching, spend less time listening to the doom and gloom merchants.
In my mother language we call this a "Totschlagargument". I don't think googling and researching more will change my point of view and I don't know why you're suggesting my view isn't backed by facts. Do you think this supports your arguments in any way? Nevertheless, I won't play the funny "no, now you go and do research" game I am very sick of.
You can deny things and discuss others away, but in the end the use of fossil fuel will come to an end.

BTW after having done research on that for years I can tell you that I am very sceptic about that hydrate thing.
I do however appreciate your contribution about geothermal energy though which is a future possibility here in germany too, as we have some vulcanic activity here as well and there are some places you can use it.
 

EnigmaNZ

New Member
Excuse me but I have been listening to the doom merchants for decades telling us the end of oil was just around the corner, 30 years later it is still just around the corner. What I am stressing is that while cheap sources of fossil fuels will come to an end eventually, there are a number of alternatives waiting in the wings. Some we will bypass due to enviromental problems inherant in their use, but you can be sure that as long as there is a profit envolved, their will be a solution. But saying that our children will be without oil because we have used it up is rediculous, oil may be the precusor to many chemical products, but it is not the sole source, just the cheapest for the time being. I am not trying to change your view, just putting across a different more positive view for others who read this thread. Your post makes it sound as though the future is bleak. How are we going to cope when oil, gas and coal run out in the near future, I am saying that oil will come to an end as the dominant energy source at some point, followed a few decades later by natural gas. Tar sands, shale oil and coal will take over and get us through at least a further century. As far as expense goes, most are in the $US40 + a barrel cost bracket, oil is at present over $60 and we are coping, so it is economic today to go down this road, as long as oil doesn't suddenly fall and undercut the alternatives as it did last time. These sources along with bio will get us through until it is economic to introduce the hydrogen/fusion age.

Some quotes-

Coal "While in 2005 the globally proven reserves of oil stood at 6,958 quadrillion BTUs Proven reserves of coal stood at a much higher level of 20,797 quadrillion BTUs. Of the 6,958 quadrillion BTUs of oil, 4,304 quadrillion BTUs were in Middle East, 817 in Europe and Eurasia, 808 in Americas excluding the US and 646 in Africa. As against the above, of the 20,797 quadrillion BTUs of coal, 6,568 quadrillion BTUs were in Europe and Eurasia, 6,792 in Asia Pacific, 5,643 in the US and only 1,161 quadrillion BTUs in Africa and Middle East."

China "It is reported that a total of 30 coal liquefaction projects are under detailed planning or at the stage of feasibility study in the country. According to conservative estimates, the total capacity would exceed 16 million tons, and the involved investment would surpass 120 billion yuan (15 billion dollars). Insiders predict that China's annual oil output liquefied from coal will reach 50 million tons by 2020. Coal-for-oil technology will be economic if the crude oil price is higher than 25 U.S. dollars per barrel."

"Under the license agreement, HTI has provided a process design package for the first of the three reactor trains ofthe world first commercial direct coal-to-liquid-fuels plant. The $2 billion facility will be located approximately 80 miles south of Baotou, at Majiata, Inner Mongolia in the People’s Republic of China. The plant will have anultimate capacity of 50,000 barrels per day of low-sulfur diesel fuel and gasoline produced from indigenous coal. After the startup of the first reactor train in late 2007, Shenhua Group intends to construct three more coalliquefaction plants in the general vicinity."

Philippines "The proposed hybrid plant will consist of a direct coal liquefaction unit (DCL), a coal gasification and syngas cleaning unit, a Fischer Tropsch synthesis unit (FT) and a power block. DCL and FT units will each produce about 30,000 barrels a day of liquid fuels. The facility will produce approximately 15 percent of the Philippines’ transportation fuel needs, resulting in estimated annual fuel cost savings of $3.2 billion, the company said. Last month Energy Undersecretary Peter Anthony A. Abaya said the $2-billion coal-to-liquids project will consume about 10,000 tons of coal to produce up to 60,000 barrels of oil."

Canada "The coal-to-liquid technology would compete with the evolving tar-sands technology being expanded in Canada. This technology involves the production, either by mining or extracting with steam, of heavy oil trapped in sand. The heavy oil is then massaged into more valuable fuels. This source already accounts for a quarter of Canada's 3.2 mm bpd output. It requires natural gas to heat the tar and is energy intensive, but still has production costs of under $ 20 a barrel. Tar-sand reserves are estimated at over 250 bn barrels."

"Roughly 450 kilometres northeast of Edmonton lies one of the fastest growing cities in Canada—Fort McMurray. With an economy fuelled by the largest single deposit of oil on the planet, the city is home to some of the largest mining equipment in the world used to excavate the tarsand. The city, located at the junction of the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers, is known for its vast deposits of tarsands, which cover 141,000 square kilometres in Alberta. It is estimated that the total volume of oil contained in the sand exceeds 1.6 trillion barrels. It’s difficult to understand just how much oil that is—over 250 barrels for every person on earth.According to estimates, as much as $100 billion will be invested in tarsand projects in the Fort McMurray area in the next 10 to 15 years"

USA "Montana has 120 billion tons of state and federal coal reserves under its surface, mostly in Eastern Montana. Schweitzer said 115 billion tons of that coal is recoverable. He said using the Fischer-Tropsch method, one ton of coal would produce 1.5 barrels of diesel fuel. A barrel is 42 gallons. "It would cost less that a $1 per gallon to make that diesel," he said.

Australia "For the present Survey, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) has reported a proved amount in place of 32.4 billion tonnes of oil shale, with proved recoverable reserves of oil put at 1 725 million tonnes. Additional reserves of shale oil are huge: in excess of 35 billion tonnes. In 1995 SPP/CPM signed a joint venture agreement with the Canadian company Suncor Energy Inc. to commence development of one of the oil shale deposits, the Stuart Deposit. Located near Gladstone, it has a total in-situ shale oil resource of 2.6 billion barrels and the capacity to produce more than 200 000 b/d"

"Australia’s first hot dry rock geothermal energy extraction project is up and running in granite beneath the Cooper Basin, NE South Australia. Evidence from existing Cooper Basin gas exploration wells that have drilled into the basement in the area, plus seismic and gravity data indicate that granite underlies the deepest part of the Basin over an area of approximately 1000 km2. The temperature at the top of the granite, at 3700m depth, is approximately 240ºC. The temperature gradient in the granite is expected to increase the rock temperature by 3ºC for every 100m into the granite. For large-scale production involving drilling 37 wells over an area of 6.25 km2, and producing 275 MWe, the cost is close to 4 cents per kWh. This is approximately the same cost as current new-entry coal-fired generation."

Aviation Jet Fuel "Excerpts:
1. A Boeing executive says development of biofuels is gaining momentum as airlines and armed forces seek alternatives to expensive jet fuel.
2. Richard Branson last week committed $3 billion to help develop alternatives to fossil fuels.
3. Feedstock considered for airline biofuels are sugarcane, switchgrass, soybeans and algae
4. The U.S. Air Force flew a B-52 bomber recently with two of its eight engines using a 50/50 blend of jet fuel and a biofuel(?) alternative.

New Zealand " New Zealand company has successfully turned sewage into modern-day gold. Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds. It is believed to be the world's first commercial production of bio-diesel from "wild" algae outside the laboratory - and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April. Blended with conventional mineral diesel, bio-diesel could run vehicles without the need for vehicle modifications. It would also help to meet the New Zealand Government B5 (5% blended) fuel targets by 2008 moving up to B20 as bio-fuel production increases."

" A German research vessel, the Sonne, will set sail tomorrow on a three-month voyage to study New Zealand's sea floor, with a particular focus on huge reserves of frozen methane hydrates. Conservative estimates have shown that gas hydrates may hold twice the energy contained in all the world's known reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas.

A lot or research into alternatives to oil is going on. The end of hydrocarbon based fuel may be some way off, but one thing for sure, the days of cheap fuel is coming to an end, the big question is, what will happen to oil prices after the Iraq war is over, will they come down as Arab producers seek to eliminate any alternatives, oil not only of economic use, but a lever to use against the US and the West as it did in the 1980's. Or will the supply versus demand push them to stay high enough for the alternatives to flourish. However it develops, the military will always have first call on resources.



"
 

Tasman

Ship Watcher
Verified Defense Pro
Very interesting post EnigmaNZ. I knew we had large coal reserves in Australia but I didn't know about the extent of the shale oil or anything about the hot rock. I guess development comes down to the price of oil! Too high and it will be developed. Too low and it will sit in the ground. Or should we be taking a long term strategic approach and develop it anyway to get away from reliance on Middle East oil?

Cheers
 
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