Very cool news. A portable refinery would be very nice in Iraq and elswhere. Imagine being able to convert the trash and any locally bought oil, into fuel for the rigs on your site? Kind of cool, and might actually save a little money and some lives, if they can reduce fuel convoys with this. Something to watch I guess. -Head Jundi
———————————————————
Tactical biorefineries go to Iraq
By David Ehrlich
Published April 29, 2008 – 7:46am
Transporting fuel to military base camps is a dangerous job for soldiers, but a new biorefinery from the U.S. Army’s research and development center could cut down on the need for some of those fuel convoys, which are often targets in war zones.
The Army’s two prototypes of the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery, or TGER, are shipping out to Victory Base Camp in Baghdad today for a 90 day test of the units under extreme working conditions.
The refineries, which can take in food slop, plastic, paper and styrofoam and output synthetic gas or hydrous ethanol, were developed by McLean, Va.-based defense contractor Defense Life Sciences, Purdue University and the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland.
“It actually hits about 130 degrees there in August,” said James Valdes, the scientific advisor for biotechnology at the Edgewood center, to Cleantech.com about Baghdad.
He said the TGERs, pronounced “tigers,” should be back stateside by then, but there will still be plenty of heat and other challenges for the biorefineries before the testing is done.
“I was there about a month ago. Every afternoon, as the wind kicks up — gets all the sand and dust in the air — very fine dust gets into everything,” said Valdes. (more…)
