Comments on: The liquid-coal military industrial complex

By: Jay Alt

Jay Alt — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:35:12 +0000

Sega’s a busy man. From his recent travels -

3/20…Under Sec of Air Force to speak at Colorado State colloquium on ‘Biofuels and planes”
9/5…Sega resigns post for a faculty position at Colorado State.
12/18… Former Air Force official joins leading coal-liquids developer

Regarding the final paragraph, here are my skim notes about a recent briefing-

DoD News Briefing at Pentagon 12.12.07
http://www.defenselink.mil/ transcripts/ transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4105

1. Goal for Air Force’s planned switch into a huge synfuels program (no carbon neutrality or sequestration commitment mentioned) (50% of Continental use by 2016)
2. Tests are well underway to certify B-52 and C-17s for synfuel blends.
3. Senators Craig and Domenici think Air Force a good testbed for a mini-nuke power plant. (10% size of BWR / PWRs)
4. Sings hosannahs to solar and wind as energy sources for AF bases. Nevis AFB first.
5. Let’s not limit the bad ideas to Air Force -
http://www.boeing.com/ commercial/ environment/ pdf/ alt_fuels.pdf Alternate Fuels for use in Commercial Aircraft (Boeing)

By: Paul K

Paul K — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:05:24 +0000

Aviation is a thorny area for CO2. No hybrids or plug ins are likely soon. The Air Force uses a lot of fuel and , despite what some may wish, robust air power is and will continue to be vital to our national interest. It is possible the need for air power to be independent from foreign fuel sources outweighs the need to reduce CO2. It is apparently assumed Sega is lying about the Air Force commitment to buy only CTL fuels that are no worse for the environment than conventional fuels, in effect requiring carbon capture and reuse or sequestration. We all know military men have no honor or integrity. I wonder what Democratic senators Glenn (ret’d) and Nelson would think of your disparaging astronaut remark.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:21:04 +0000

Where did I disparage astronauts? It is laughable that Rentech claims Sega isn’t being hired because of what he did for them when he was at the AF. What does being an astronaut have to do with being qualified to be on the board of a liquid coal company?

What is the point of spend billions to develop a fuel that at best has the same CO2 emissions and at worst has twice the emissions?

By: Paul K

Paul K — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:58:27 +0000

The point of spending the billions clearly is to prevent the vagaries of worldwide oil supply from negatively impacting national security. In this case, CO2 is a side issue. I appreciate your desire that CO2 always be priority number one. Of all the areas of fossil fuel replacement, aviation does seem to be the most perplexing. Is there anything on or just over the horizon that gives you hope?

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:18:16 +0000

Yes, there is. I’ll try to blog on it next week.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:05:08 +0000

Joe said “I can hardly wait until Rentech tries to sell liquid coal to NASA!”

Funny thing is, NASA just might buy it. They already have an Alternative Fuel Research Laboratory at Glenn.

http://www.nasa.gov/ centers/ glenn/ news/ AF/ 2007/ Feb07_AltFuel.html

Maybe those astronaut credentials will come in handier than we thought!

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:23:19 +0000

I should have been clearer.
“I can hardly wait until Rentech tries to sell liquid coal to NASA for use by astronauts!”