Swift Fuel

[Sig600]

Just curious what the experts out there think about the future of this stuff. If the claims are true, it looks to be a 100% drop in replacement.

[David-aviator]

Originally Posted by Sig600

Just curious what the experts out there think about the future of this stuff. If the claims are true, it looks to be a 100% drop in replacement.

Swift fuel is like your signature, 10 years under construction and counting.

I must say though, they give interesting talks at OSH.

[Rupester]

Our EAA Chapter (129) had the Swift fuel folks do a webinar for us about a year ago. It was both very interesting and promising. Their synthetic fuel WORKS. It has been tested and used much more than many of us had understood. It actually has many advantages over 100LL. My takeaway was the technical aspects have largely been solved .... it's the production and commercial business model that remains to be "polished". You might take a look at their website.

[Sig600]

Originally Posted by David-aviator

Swift fuel is like your signature, 10 years under construction and counting.

That was funny.

Originally Posted by Rupester

Our EAA Chapter (129) had the Swift fuel folks do a webinar for us about a year ago. It was both very interesting and promising. Their synthetic fuel WORKS. It has been tested and used much more than many of us had understood. It actually has many advantages over 100LL. My takeaway was the technical aspects have largely been solved .... it's the production and commercial business model that remains to be "polished". You might take a look at their website.

Their website is frustratingly devoid of any info on the business or status of implementation.

[AlexPeterson]

Originally Posted by Rupester

Our EAA Chapter (129) had the Swift fuel folks do a webinar for us about a year ago. It was both very interesting and promising. Their synthetic fuel WORKS. It has been tested and used much more than many of us had understood. It actually has many advantages over 100LL. My takeaway was the technical aspects have largely been solved .... it's the production and commercial business model that remains to be "polished". You might take a look at their website.

ahh, but the "production and commercial" part is indeed usually the hardest part... Not hard to make synthetic fuels, it's been happening for a long, long time. Extremely difficult to do so economically.

[RV10inOz]

it's the production and commercial business model that remains to be "polished"

And I hate to say it...but this will kill it off.

The cost of components is where it all comes undone. I believe that the expensive bit is well over USD$8/gallon in volumes of ships holds.

This could be wrong, but I doubt it, it sounds about right.

[GusBiz]

The discussion on Synthetic fuels is simply a product market.

Making refined fuels from crude oil is just as difficult and just as technically challenging, its just that we have had 80 years to mass produce it and get it technically and economically right.

If the same degree of effort was put in Synthetic fuel then the price would be about the same.

While we still have large oil reserves, its not going to happen. It just isn't financially worth the effort.

[flyingriki]

Good article from Ben Visser this morning on Swift progress:

http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2...ls/#more-58676