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Analysis: Defence industry must look beyond hydrocarbons
By Jon Grevatt
18 November 2008
Defence industries and militaries need to improve their collective response to rise to the challenge of finding alternative fuel resources for the future, Julius Pretterebner, director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates' (CERA's) Global Oil advisory group, told Jane's.
Pretterebner added that industries need to look beyond current alternative hydrocarbon fuels - including ethanol and biodiesel and fuels that are produced from the Fischer-Tropsch process - in order to find a solution that works effectively.
"The military and the defence industries have three options: burn less fuel with higher-efficiency engines; burn different fuels that can be used as an alternative energy carrier; or improve military logistics, which will be done anyway," said Pretterebner.
"But I have doubts whether militaries and the defence industries are doing enough to evaluate the potential fuels and different synthetics," he said. "Not every fuel must be a hydrocarbon fuel. We should expect that fuels other than oil will provide the transport energy of the future."
An example of a potential alternative fuel beyond hydrocarbons, stated Pretterebner, is currently being evaluated by Professor Norbert Auner from the Goethe University of Frankfurt in Germany: hydrogen poly silicon (HPS).
"HPS might be a promising fuel alternative. As an energy carrier, HPS has some interesting features. It can be produced out of sand, sun and water, which would make it free of CO2."