U.S. Navy Turning Sea Water Into Fuel? Get Me A Bucket!

Turn sea water into fuel? Wait… What?

In a stunning revelation that, if true, would overtake sliced bread as the best thing ever, the U.S. Navy has reportedly figured out how to turn sea water into fuel, reports the Washington Times.

Strangely, the seemingly amazing, life-changing, world-changing, and any number of other-things-changing technique isn’t being shouted from the mountain tops.

“Sea water into fuel? Sea water into fuel?” You’d think any number of people would be running around screaming it!

Well, maybe there are some out there that aren’t too thrilled…

But either way, given the issues with climate change and fuel prices again going through the summer time roof, count me in for driving out on the beach to fill my tank with sea-water-into-fuel!

The Huffington Post reports that scientists with the United States Navy say they have successfully developed a way to convert, yes, CONVERT, sea water into jet fuel.

And isn’t jet fuel even better than the stuff I fill up with at ARCO? I’ll be beatin’ those hot-rod fools off the line at every green light! I hope my kids’ car seats can handle the new G’s…

Regardless, any ability to convert sea water into fuel is a game changer at many levels and the U.S. Navy is calling it, “a potentially revolutionary advancement.”

Ah, yeah.

Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have reportedly developed this sea-water-into-fuel technology by extracting carbon dioxide from sea water while simultaneously producing hydrogen, and then converting the gasses into hydrocarbon liquid fuel.

Okay, whatever.

The point is, the ability to convert sea water to fuel could potentially save our U.S. Navy Heroes hours with their at-sea refueling processes which would allow those hours to be focused on their missions, and we could be filling our car tanks with sea water fuel!

As it is, our U.S. Navy’s vessels currently rely entirely on oil-based fuel, except for some nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines, according to the International Business Times.

The ability to tap fuel from sea water may change that, according to Vice Admiral, Philip Cullom.

“For us in the military, in the Navy, we have some pretty unusual and different kinds of challenges,” Cullom told Agence-France Presse. “We don’t necessarily go to a gas station to get our fuel. Our gas station comes to us in terms of an oiler, a replenishment ship. Developing a game-changing technology like this, seawater to fuel, really is something that reinvents a lot of the way we can do business when you think about logistics, readiness.”

The sea water into fuel process involves extracting carbon and hydrogen gasses from the seawater and converting them to liquids using metal catalytic converters in a reactor system. The resulting liquid product contains hydrocarbon molecules with carbon levels suitable for replacing petroleum jet fuel, according to and NRL press release.

Last but definitely not least, the Huffington Post reports that, “The NRL projects the new fueling system could be commercially viable in less than 10 years and could produce jet fuel that costs $3-6 dollars per gallon.”

$3-6 a gallon? Awesome! Hopefully, the U.S. Navy’s sea water into fuel technique will translate to our own gas pumps as soon as possible!

Image via Navy Times