4 ms·

The correct price comparison is the cost of getting fuel to some remote FOB in Afghanistan which is extremely high.

• wffurr 5y ago
  How do you generate enough electricity at said remote FOB to create a useful amount of fuel? Forward-deployed nuclear reactors would do the job, but would also be enormously expensive and vulnerable.
  • kfprt 5y ago
    Solar? It doesn't matter really since the technology is too far out.
    • wffurr 5y ago
      Fischer Tropsch synthesis is ancient tech. It’s not far out at all. Perhaps making it portable with a convenient, also portable, energy source is?
      • kfprt 5y ago
        Frankly I'll believe it when I see it, commercialization that is.
  • pwg 5y ago
    > How do you generate enough electricity at said remote FOB to create a useful amount of fuel? You might not need to go that far to make the overall system economical. Imagine an aircraft carrier retrofitted with this system to generate jet fuel for its planes. If it can synthesize more fuel that its complement of aircraft require (this is likely), then it can be a supply generator for the remote FOB. There's still logistics in shipping from that carrier at sea nearby into the remote FOB, but that becomes a shorter supply line than shipping the equivalent quantity of jet fuel from a refinery in the state of Louisiana to the same FOB.
• bpodgursky 5y ago
  Jets don't launch from remote FOBs. (I hear you re: gas and diesel for land vehicles, but that's not the q)