Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
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Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
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Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#2Okay great. Where does the energy come from?
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#3Extract CO2 and H2 from seawater, react to form hydrocarbons of varying lengths, then refine. Presumably all powered by the nuclear reactors.
initial studies predict that jet fuel from seawater would cost in the range of $3 to $6 per gallon to produce
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#4Okay great. Where does the energy come from?
If it's an aircraft carrier, probably the nuclear power plant on board.
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#5Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#6When energy is cheap, plentiful and clean things like this are possible. If only we built more nuclear power plants and solar power farms. Turning coal into jet fuel isn't a great idea :)
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#7When energy is cheap, plentiful and clean things like this are possible. If only we built more nuclear power plants and solar power farms. Turning coal into jet fuel isn't a great idea :)
Rejoice then, because this will almost certainly be done on carriers powered by nuclear power plants.
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#8One of the main endurance (and damage control) problems for a nuclear carrier is the huge amount of jet fuel used by the air wing, so this would be a huge deal. After jet fuel, they just need to underway replenish armaments and food, both of which are easier than fuel (food isn't dangerous, and most missions don't expend weapons now, so the total volume is lower than for fuel).
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#9When energy is cheap, plentiful and clean things like this are possible. If only we built more nuclear power plants and solar power farms. Turning coal into jet fuel isn't a great idea :)
Rejoice then, because this will almost certainly be done on carriers powered by nuclear power plants.
But of course! That was sort of my point...
Re: Making Jet Fuel From Seawater While at Sea
#10Extract CO2 and H2 from seawater, react to form hydrocarbons of varying lengths, then refine. Presumably all powered by the nuclear reactors. initial studies predict that jet fuel from seawater would cost in the range of $3 to $6 per gallon to produce
That is exactly why its such a big deal. Current jet fuel costs over $8/gal delivered. It costs so much because even if it comes out of the refinery at San Diego at $2/gal it has to be loaded into an oiler [1] and then driven out to sea where the carrier task group is.
If you're on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier you have plenty of electricity so this is a pretty huge win.
Of course an alternative way to make this feasible for the fleet would be to build a nuclear powered oiler. It could process seawater into jet fuel as it cruised along with the fleet and transfer fuel as needed, but to this day fuel transfer at sea is one of the more dangerous things they do.