Slashdot Mirror
Biofuels Will Power Navy's Next Deployment (sandiegouniontribune.com)
mdsolar writes with news about the launch of the "Great Green Fleet," part of a Navy plan to use 50% alternative fuels by 2020. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports: "This Wednesday, there surely will be tears, hugs and excitement as sailors begin another deployment to the world's hotspots. On the surface, it will be a replay of a common occurrence in any Navy town when sailors go to sea, but in the ships' gas tanks will be fuel made from renewable resources that has officials back at the Pentagon exuberant. 'Underway on beef-fat power' might not have the same ring as 'Underway on nuclear power,' the historic message the Nautilus submarine beamed when it left the pier 61 years ago today. Nonetheless, the Navy is trumpeting the use of renewable biofuels as a game-changer. In 2009, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that the Navy and Marine Corps would get half of their power from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020, and that the Navy would deploy an entire carrier strike group using biofuels by 2016."
It seems unlikely that the navy has any particular interest in doing this as a cost saving measure(especially in the near term); and a much greater interest in knowing that they have the option of doing this in the relatively likely event that they'll be called to do something when one or more oil producing regions go further to hell than usual and prices and availability reflect that.
If they happen to save money at some point, so much the better; but the enthusiasm is presumably for being able to set sail with a tested fuel even if the usual supply chains are shot. Plus, testing it in ships is probably a convenient starting point. Big marine engines are less touchy than fighter aircraft or the like.