DARPA in search of alternative coal-to-JP-8 technologies
By John Croft

Research proposals for liquid conversion technologies that can produce
JP-8 hydrocarbon fuel directly from coal have been requested by the
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The request is part of an effort to supply alternate sources of the US
military's average fuel requirement of more than 300,000 barrels of
petroleum-based liquid fuels per day.

Under the broad agency announcement, the agency says it plans to issue
more than $4.5 million in contracts for the work after the proposal
period ends next year.

Today's coal conversion plants can produce 150,000 barrels a day of oil
from 120,000t of coal, says DARPA, though the two preferred methods
produce "unacceptable amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other
pollutants".

DARPA is seeking alternative coal to liquid fuel conversion technologies
that "offer environmentally friendly, yet efficient" methods for
creating fuel from US coal reserves, which DARPA says are estimated to
be more than 275 billion tons, a supply that existing coal-to-liquid
processes could convert into enough fuel to supply the US armed forces
for "several thousand years."