MINOT (AP) - A B-52 bomber from Minot Air Force Base will help the Air Force test a blend of synthetic fuel and conventional petroleum fuel.

"The Department of Defense is very interested in all domestic resources, and petroleum will be used for a long time. But we'd like to become users - some of the first users - of an alternative source," said Bill Harrison, a researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The test with the B-52 is planned later this month at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Harrison said. An exact date has not yet been set.

Harrison said he has been to North Dakota to work on getting fuel certified for use by the Air Force.

The B-52 from Minot was chosen for the test by the Air Combat Command, Harrison said. The Minot base's 5th Bomb Wing, which has B-52 bombers, is a part of the command.

The plane already is at Edwards Air Force Base, Harrison said. "They've added some additional instrumentation, but that's really the only modifications," he said.

The test involves a blend of fuel made from coal and petroleum. Harrison said one advantage of the B-52 is that it has multiple engines.

"We'll start with some ground-engine tests, and then they'll actually do three or four flights with the fuel in two engines at first and then later eight engines," Harrison said.

The fuel is blended through the Fischer-Tropsch process, developed in the 1920s and named for two German scientists. It involves gasifying coal and then liquefying it into fuel.

"One of the nice things about the Fischer-Tropsch process in the first steps is you gasify the material - gasifying coal much like you do up in Beulah at the Great Plains plant. But you could also gasify natural gas, you could gasify petroleum coke and you could gasify biomass," Harrison said.

The military is hoping to save money by using alternative fuel, he said.

"We want it to be at market or below. Everybody would prefer below," Harrison said.

He said the Air Force uses more than 3 billion gallons of aviation fuel a year and currently pays $3.50 a gallon.