US Navy Developing Jet Fuel from Seawater - Neatorama

Navy chemists claim to have refined short chain hydrocarbons from seawater and hope to develop kerosene-based jet fuel from the process:

The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel...

Dorner and colleagues found that using the usual cobalt-based catalyst on seawater-derived CO2 produced almost entirely methane gas. Switching to an iron catalyst resulted in only 30 per cent methane being produced, with the remainder short-chain hydrocarbons that could be refined into jet fuel.

Link via Discover Magazine

So on any ship woth lots of electricity, soon they don't need all the hassle with the cables and hoses from supplyships? That is neat. Navy goes science fiction. :-)

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Sweet, time to start draining the oceans! Fuel for planes is way more important then the ecosystem that is contained in the worlds oceans.

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There are so many chemical holes in this story, I am not sure if it is SciFi or Military Misdirection.

However, I sincerely hope that this does work. Imagine the ability to create gasoline from sea water and nuclear power. It is the abiotic dream.

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I somehow doubt that creating jet fuel from seawater is an efficient process, Edward...

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This is a perpetual motion scam--won't it take more energy to produce the jet fuel than we would actually get from the fuel itself?

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@M. Yes but the energy is transferred into a different state for use in the engines. Perhaps they should spend the money on battery tech.

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If there's anywhere on earth that this would work it's on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean; a virtually unlimited supply of water (and no, dru, it wouldn't drain the oceans; have you ever seen an ocean?) and a nuclear powerplant under the deck. Bump up the output of the reactor just a tad and you've got fuel to burn.

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Interesting theory. Does anyone know if this has something to do with the algae content in the seawater?

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the second law of thermodynamics says that this fuel will come at a very high cost in terms of money and energy input. it might work in a pinch in a nuclear powered navy ship.

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@Kevin C

I think it has something to do with this.

http://green.autoblog.com/2007/09/10/salt-water-as-fuel-burning-hydrogen-with-radio-waves-its-true/

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