A Texas company has plans to use a site at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority’s Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park in Kailua-Kona to make jet fuel from seawater.
The state’s Office of Planning and Sustainable Development on Monday published a draft environmental assessment with a finding of no significant environmental impact for the project proposal by Sea Dragon Energy Inc. of Florence, Texas, a small town about 40 miles north of Austin.
“Our desire is to meet the specifications for JP-5,” Tracy Kriewald, Sea Dragon Energy’s vice president of engineering, told the Tribune-Herald on Monday.
Jet Propellant-5, also known as JP-5, is a type of jet fuel used in military aircraft, mostly Navy aircraft that take off and land from aircraft carriers. It’s a flammable liquid that smells like kerosene and is made from hydrocarbons, which are compounds found in crude oil.
The facility, when and if built, would be a research-and-development laboratory for Sea Dragon’s Project GENESIS.
According to Sea Dragon’s website, the aim of the project is to refine the efficiency of a technology patented by the Naval Research Laboratory to allow extraction of carbon dioxide from seawater and simultaneously produce hydrogen.
“The ocean is an incredible reservoir with over 140 times the carbon dioxide concentration compared to air, and it also contains hydrogen, which is another important component in making SAF” — which is an acronym for “sustainable aviation fuel” — according to Sea Dragon’s website.
Sea Dragon said the next-generation aviation fuel-making process will have both military and commercial applications.
NELHA’s HOST Park extracts seawater from depths of up to 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface which, according to Kriewald, is what makes the Kona site attractive to Sea Dragon.
“We want to go there because they have great seawater and seawater infrastructure,” he said. “We want the nice, clean seawater to make it easier for us.
“We won’t have to do a lot of pre-treatment of the water.”
While the potential of the project appears to be as vast as the ocean itself, the technology is in its infancy.
According to the draft EA, the process will require the monthly extraction of 449,000 gallons of seawater through NELHA’s seawater system, 50,000 gallons of fresh water, and 70 kilograms of supplemental hydrogen (H2) gas to produce 10 gallons of aviation fuel.
Byproducts of the process will include hydrocarbon gases equivalent to a gallon of fuel and 80 gallons of water.
According to Kriewald, the seawater and fresh water will be returned to the source — the ocean, in the case of the seawater.
The fresh water might come from the Department of Water Supply, although the document indicates an alternative source is being considered.
The supplemental hydrogen could come from a production facility at the HOST Park, although commercial alternatives also are available.
“For every gallon of ocean water that we use, we put a gallon back in. We don’t use any water. We just extract the CO2 that’s embedded in it,” Kriewald said.
The facility, which is projected to cost between $12 million and $20 million, would be built in an already existing building that formerly housed a bottler of desalinated seawater.
“No new buildings, substantial land disturbances, or substantial new outdoor equipment are proposed,” the draft EA states.
Project GENESIS, if successful, could lead to the development of a larger seawater-to-jet fuel industry.
“This might be the first integrated end-to-end process that we know of, in which one company is responsible for everything for direct ocean capture,” Kriewald said. “But this is not a manufacturing facility, at all. That’s not our job.
“This project is to learn how to improve efficiency.”
According to the draft EA, Sea Dragon will be responsible for decommissioning the equipment at the facility at the completion of the R&D period.
“We’re a research lab, and we’ll always be a research lab,” Kriewald said. “We’ll be there maybe four to five years to do research on different things as the technology changes.
“It’s a very interesting technology, and it could be something that’s very valuable for the future.”
Sea Dragon representatives, according to Kriewald, will be at the HOST Park’s 50th Anniversary Open House from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19.
The draft EA, which can be found at bit.ly/4ehrY4q, triggers at 30-day public comment period.
Comments can be emailed to Makena White of Planning Solutions Inc. at makena@psi-hi.com. “Snail mail” comments can be sent to White at Planning Solutions Inc., 711 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 950, Honolulu, HI 96813.
The final EA is expected in November, but even with the expected finding of no significant impact, construction isn’t likely to begin until early 2026.
“We’re now working on the engineering for this,” Kriewald said. “Some of this equipment, even though it’s small, takes about 12 months before it starts showing up, because it’s not off the shelf. It’s custom made and designer built.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.