The production of fuels from agricultural products is paramount to the national security of the United States and is a value-added opportunity for North Dakota agriculture producers.
Areas of EERC Expertise
- Development of new tactical fuels for the U.S. Department of Defense, including a renewable domestic jet fuel to replace the current JP-8 jet fuel
- Biodiesel production and value-added ultrahigh cetane diesel additives
- Ethanol production from corn and cellulosic materials
- Conversion of biomass feedstocks into other valuable fuels and chemicals such as ethanol, methanol, dimethyl ether, and Fischer-Tropsch distillates using thermochemical processing
Related Program
The EERC National Alternative Fuels Laboratory (NAFL®) builds collaborations with industry to overcome technical, economic, and social barriers to commercial utilization of alternative fuels. NAFL has been working for the past 18 years developing essential technologies to produce economical fuels and chemicals from renewable agricultural resources.
Military Tactical Fuels
The EERC was recently awarded approximately $5 million from the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the development and demonstration of a new domestic bio-jet fuel for the U.S. military. The fuel produced by the EERC is a replacement for the traditional JP-8 petroleum-based fuel, but produced from renewable feedstock. JP-8 represents the majority of all fuel used in the U.S. military. The EERC fuel will meet the military specification for JP-8, which is used to power vehicles such as the Boeing B-52 bomber, the Abrams A1 Battle Tank, the Apache Helicopter, and many others.
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