By George Lobsenz
The U.S. Air Force last week dropped plans for a privately funded coal-to-liquid synthetic fuel plant at its Malmstrom AFB in Montana, saying bids received for the project are “not viable” and would interfere with base operations and security.
At the same time, Rentech Inc. said the Air Force had purchased synthetic jet fuel produced at its Commerce City, Colo., demonstration synfuels plant for performance and emissions testing in a turbine engine.
The Air Force, the largest fuel user in the Defense Department, is moving to cut its dependence on foreign oil and has set a goal of getting 50 percent of its fuel from domestic synthetic fuel plants by 2016.
However, the Air Force said Thursday that Kathleen Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, had decided to end consideration of building a coal- to-liquids (CTL) plant at Malmstrom after reviewing bids made by contractors and feedback from Air Force Space Command and the 341st Space Wing at Malmstrom.
In seeking proposals for the project in February, the Air Force required that the CTL plant be built and operated with private funds; not interfere with Malmstrom operations; and “comport with federal laws and regulations.
However, the Air Force said that in reviewing the proposals received, it concluded a CTL plant could conflict with the missile wing’s mission, including degrading security in the vicinity of weapons storage and interfering with missile transportation operations.
The Air Force did not say whether its decision was affected by provisions of recently enacted energy legislation that bars federal agencies from using any alternative fuels that have higher greenhouse gas emission potential than regular petroleum fuels.
CTL fuel has roughly twice the carbon content of gasoline, but CTL manufacturers such as Rentech say they can remove carbon from synfuel during production and sequester it.