The magazine, Aviation Week & Space Technology, (AW&ST), is a great source of technology for all things affecting aviation and many things affecting the world in general.
My latest issue pointed out that the USA’s abundance of natural gas—and the ability to recover it cheaply through the new process of fracking—changes the search for new energy sources. As you well know, the big push has been for alternative fuels to eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels. AW&ST wonders if cheap natural gas—which can be converted to cheap liquid natural gas (LNG)—will change that for the future.
LNG can be used in gas turbine engines “with relatively straightforward modification” and can also be used in autos, heating/cooling, ships and a jillion other ways. The basic argument is economical.
Boeing’s Ron Kawai says LNG has a higher energy content than kerosene and also lower carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, LNG requires cryogenic storage, but the heavier fuel tanks could be more than offset by the improvement in specific fuel consumption. A mix of LNG and kerosene is also being considered.
In the meantime, the era of cheap oil is over. The world still has oil, but no longer has cheap oil. Simply put, the cost to find and recover oil is rising.
Economic advantage is a strong motivation for any change. I didn’t say this is the way it should be, only that this is the way it is. Right now, it looks like the most profitable will be LNG fuel for awhile—unless somebody or some entity subsidizes other fuels, as we did with corn subsidies.
