3-D conceptual drawing of NRC's Gas Turbine Laboratory facilities showing fuel tanks (left foreground) and combustion test cells (yellow doors) planned under the AFFORD initiative.

Over the next three years, the National Research Council Canada Institute for Aerospace Research (NRC Aerospace) is proposing to build an Alternate Fuel Facility for Research and Development (AFFORD) at its Gas Turbine Laboratory in Ottawa. The facility would address a comprehensive range of alternate fuels from ethanol in aviation engines and gas turbines to biodiesels and syngas or hydrogen-enriched fuels in industrial gas turbine combustion systems. AFFORD would allow NRC staff to carry out basic research and would provide a technology demonstration environment to help companies bring their products to market.

According to Bob Hastings, Director of the NRC Aerospace Gas Turbine Laboratory, "NRC has used its facilities in the past to help companies develop a variety of low emission technologies for gas turbine engines in the aviation and energy sectors. In 1996, we successfully tested Orenda's biomass engine, a 2.5 megawatt gas turbine that was a very early, perhaps the first in the world to run on liquid biofuel oil. We would use the same approach with alternate fuels that we have found so successful in transitioning environmental technologies using conventional fuels."

Only three such facilities exist in North America. NRC's facilities, which would be available to everyone, would equal or better their performance characteristics and be able to handle a full range of end-use products. Two new combustion test cells would be built next to NRC's two existing test cells, for use in full-scale testing, and tanks to hold nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon monoxide will be installed. The other components would include a newly recommissioned altitude test facility and a research-scale hydrogen combustion facility. NRC would also install burners to treat any exhaust gases to ensure they are as clean as possible when released into the environment.

Hastings stated, "A facility such as this one can be established very quickly because we've got everything we need."

AFFORD would help companies develop technologies for a wide range of alternate fuels, including ethanol, biodiesel, syngas/hydrogen-enriched fuels, and coal liquefaction. The latter is particularly promising as clean coal processes now exist to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from today's coal-fired power generating plants. Working closely with industry, NRC would research, validate, and improve these technologies in its new facilities, then help companies take them to market.

To ensure that engines survive in the new environment, new coating materials will be required. NRC is also spearheading an initiative involving ten universities across the country to develop computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capabilities that can deal with the new combustion processes.

Several companies have expressed interest in working with NRC should the AFFORD initiative materialize. They include Rolls Royce Canada Industrial Gas Turbines, GE Energy, and Pratt & Whitney Canada, whose interest lie in increasing ethanol usage in aviation engines. A variety of smaller energy-related companies have also expressed an interest in using these facilities.

"I believe we could make a real difference in getting technology into the marketplace that would significantly reduce emissions," said Hastings. "The facilities would be very important but what's equally, or more important, is that our people, and their research capabilities, allow us to do technology demonstrations particularly well. We've worked closely with industry for many years. We know their needs and meet their timelines. We've done this work with conventional fuels; applying our expertise to alternative fuels would be a low-risk endeavour."