AIR FORCE GOES GREEN ON B-52.Byline: JIM Jim Miss Watson’s runaway slave; Huck’s traveling companion. [Am. Lit.: Huckleberry Finn] See : Escape SKEEN Staff Writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. -- The Air Force successfully flew a B-52 bomber bomber Military aircraft designed to drop bombs on surface targets. Aerial bombardment can be traced to the Italo-Turkish War (1911), in which an Italian pilot dropped grenades on two Turkish targets. Tuesday with a synthetic fuel Synthetic fuel or synfuel is any liquid fuel obtained from coal, natural gas, or biomass. It can sometimes refer to fuels derived from other solids such as oil shale, tar sand, waste plastics, or from the fermentation of biomatter. made from natural gas, as part of a program aimed at lessening the military's dependence on foreign oil. The bomber used a 50-50 blend of synthetic fuel feeding two of its eight engines, with the other engines running on conventional jet fuel as a safety measure. At least two more test flights with the fuel are planned. If the tests indicate the fuel is viable, additional testing will be done, said Ronald Sega, undersecretary of the Air Force. ``We will look at a flight of the B-52 using all engines on a blend of synthetic fuel and then onto other engines and aircraft in our fleet,'' Sega said. ``We want to make sure that if we if use it as an option that we do the proper testing and certification for our aircraft fleet.'' The Edwards flight-test work is part of a Pentagon Pentagon Huge five-sided building (1941–43) in Arlington, Va., that is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense. Designed by George Edwin Bergstrom, it was, on its completion, the world's largest office building, covering 34 acres (14 hectares) and offering effort, started in 2001, called the Assured Fuel Initiative. The idea is to ensure an energy supply regardless of uncertainty in oil-producing countries or problems spurred by natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina's damage last year to Gulf Coast oil refineries This is a list of oil refineries. The Oil and Gas Journal also publishes a worldwide list of refineries annually in a country-by-country tabulation that includes for each refinery: location, crude oil daily processing capacity, and the size of each process unit in the refinery. . The Air Force alone consumes 3.2 billion gallons of fuel annually, accounting for about 80percent of the federal government's fuel usage. The Air Force wants to have half of its aviation fuel supply coming from alternative fuel sources by 2016. Engineers expect the Fischer-Tropsch fuel -- named for the two German researchers who developed the process -- will have the same performance as regular jet fuel but with less pollution because it contains less sulfur than regular fuels. The fuel the B-52 is using is being produced by an Oklahoma company called Syntroleum Corp., which has a plant that produces 70 barrels a day of Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Although the Air Force conducted the flight test with a fuel derived from natural gas, Syntroleum officials say they think the fuel can also be produced from coal -- of which the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. has tremendous amounts. In addition to military applications, successful testing of the fuel could lead to opportunities with commercial airlines, program officials said. james.skeen(at)dailynews (661) 267-5743 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion