Despite Fracking Boom, US Military Still Looks to Biofuel over Natural Gas
by Seth Robson (Stars and Stripes) The drilling boom created by hydraulic fracking has led to an explosion of natural gas vehicles on U.S. highways, but the U.S. military has been slow to jump on the bandwagon.
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“We are in the role of technology watcher as we follow (natural gas research) developments in the civilian world and look for ways to leverage those efforts for our needs,” according to Kevin Geiss, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy.
There are a multitude of reasons keeping the services from running to the showroom floors for new natural gas vehicles, including the lack of fill-up stations.
Matthew Bourke, an Army public affairs officer, said while the Army has 65 non-tactical vehicles fueled by natural gas, there’s no current research aimed at using the technology in tactical vehicles, such as tanks.
“There are no CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles available that are suitable for vehicle requirements in a deployed area and no distribution or CNG refueling infrastructure in an expeditionary environment,” Bourke said.
…In contrast, some biofuel-powered vehicles also operate on conventional fuel, and biodiesel can be blended for use in conventional engines, he said.
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Hess (Kenneth Hess, a spokesman at the chief of Naval Operations Energy and Environmental Readiness Division) cited the cost of retrofitting equipment, safety concerns and relatively low energy density as reasons for not fueling the fleet with natural gas.
“All of our aircraft require an energy dense liquid fuel,” he said. “Natural gas has not been used as a fuel source for Navy ships, and there are no current plans for its use to power Navy ships.”
Another thing that cuts against using natural gas in ships is the role of conventional fuel in maintaining vessels’ stability — something that wouldn’t be possible using natural gas unless the ships were retrofitted at considerable cost, he said.
The lower energy of natural gas would mean ships powered by it needed to carry as much as 50 percent more fuel than normal, he said. READ MORE
