Episode 54 | Fleet Fuel | Naval Research Laboratory
I was introduced to this episode's guest, Dr. Heather Willauer, by my guest from Episode 50, Dr. Paul Jaffe. Dr. Willauer and her team have developed a two-step process to create JP-5 fuel from seawater:
- An Electrolytic Cation Exchange Module (E-CEM), much like a fuel cell, breaks down bicarbonate and carbonate in the water into Hydrogen and CO2.
- A Fisher-Tropsch design uses the resulting gases to create fuel.
I have known for a long time that the Ocean, not the atmosphere, contains much of the world's CO2. In fact, the atmosphere only holds about 2% of the total. When you consider the weight-by-volume of water vs. air, the ocean contains 140x more CO2 by volume.
That in itself is important, because for all the efforts to remove CO2 from smokestacks or ambient air, oceanic CO2 removal could yield incredible potential for climate hawks. However, best I can tell, this research—which is only ½ of the overall process—is the only of its kind.
The second half of the process can produce JP-5, a near-universal fuel for the military that can power ships, aircraft, and over-land vehicles.
The technology has a few drawbacks. It's about twice as energy intensive as the fuel it creates (particularly Hydrogen), however, fuel in the field is certainly worth the expense. Also, it takes about 23,000 gallons of water pumped through the system to create enough CO2 for a gallon of fuel. But considering the alternative—air— would take 3.2 million gallons, seawater is clearly the winner.
According to Heather, they could get the price of the fuel down to about $6/gallon. We have discussed the military's need for energy on site. There's a premium for energy, like this, that could be created at the source of consumption.
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