Air force tells biofuels industry to 'bring it'.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: BIOFUELS

The Air Force within the next five years wants to be able to go on a shopping spree to snap up several hundred million gallons of alternative fuels produced within U.S. borders.

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As the Defense Department's largest gas-guzzling service certifies its aircraft to fly on 50-50 blends of jet and synthetic fuels, officials are telling industry that it must step up production to meet the expected surge in demand beginning in 2016.

"I'm throwing the gauntlet down to industry," said Timothy Bridges, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, environment, safety and occupational health. "We're doing our part. We're asking them to do theirs and support the country as we move toward alternative energies," he told National Defense in an interview at the Pentagon.

The Air Force is working to wean itself off foreign oil. It consumes some 2.5 billion gallons of jet fuel annually. By 2030, its intention is to fly on domestically produced alternative fuels concocted from renewable sources including biomass, which encompasses everything from wood chips and plant oils to animal fats and agricultural waste. Those fuels must be cost competitive with petroleum and have greenhouse gas emissions equal to or less than that of oil, officials said.

"It has to be a business consideration because we want competitively priced fuels for it to make sense to do it," said Bridges. "Yes, we can get the quantities that we need for the testing, but when it comes to our requirement to actually fly the fleet, that's a larger challenge. We're setting the expectations. We want it to be there when we're ready," added Bridges, who until recently oversaw energy as part of his responsibilities. A new office dedicated solely to energy was established by the service in November. It is being led by Kevin Geiss, deputy assistant secretary for energy.

The Air Force has set an interim, mid-decade goal of acquiring half of the service's annual domestic aviation fuel requirement via alternative blends derived from locally sourced feedstocks. "That amounts to 400 million gallons by 2016," said Bridges. "We know it takes a while for the infrastructure to be developed to produce that quantity, so we need to send the signals now. If it takes three or four years to build the plant, then we want to make sure that they'll understand we'll be ready at the end of that period to actually acquire those fuels."

The Air Force's aircraft fleet, ground equipment and vehicles so far have been approved to fly and operate on coal- and natural gas-derived synthetic jet fuel blends. As officials continue to test other samples made from renewable sources and processes, they remain confident that the service will be prepared to buy mass quantities of synthetic and green fuel for operational use. The challenge, they say, is on industry's end, and they are seeking companies to step up and "bring it."

"We want to say, 'Look guys, we're going to be ready. Will you be ready?'" said Bridges.

That is the question everyone is asking as the nascent alternative fuel industry experiments with turning a variety of feedstocks into fuel. To help industry move along, the Air Force Research Laboratory is testing and certifying as many of those non-petroleum fuels as possible. Officials have taken a drop-in replacement approach. Regardless of whether the fuel was made from corn stover, algae, camelina or animal fats, the end product must function like conventional JP-8 fuel.

"That we're agnostic to the feedstock and process has really driven people to be really innovative. We're seeing the benefits of that,"...