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Navy Spends $33 Million For Hybrid of the High Sea
coondoggie writes "Some might call it an enormous floating Prius, but others will call it a step in the right direction: A new hybrid electric engine for US Navy ships that promises to save up to 12,000 barrels of oil a year per ship.
The folks who brought you the Predator unmanned flying aircraft, General Atomics, this week got $32.7 million to develop a proof-of-concept Hybrid Electric Drive (HED) system for a full-scale demonstration on board the Navy's DDG 51 Class destroyers.
DDG 51 destroyers are powered by General Electric gas turbines capable of moving the ships along at over 30 knots or about 35 mph. The General Atomics system would meld into this system and let the ship use electric power for slow-speed maneuvers. The engines would provide more power as the ship needed to go faster."
You just did. The life expectancy of a Navy ship is along the lines of 30-40 YEARS. As long as the engine doesn't eat it's self and can just be maintained then you will come close to if not completely pay for it's self. Also oil costs dont factor into the cost of physically refueling the ship. Plus if this engine works as planned, it will likely be significantly cheaper to build more since that 33 million rolls in development costs.
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Only $33 million? For a military contract? Really? Not to be a smartass, but that seems insanely cheap for what they're asking for.