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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."
and the carrier will be powered by organically grown uranium
Used to be that USA and Saudi Arabia were allies of necessity. Not so much anymore. Once the US can project power without risk of getting strangled by OPEC they are no longer a necessary ally, only a convenient one.
I guess Obama telegraphed this message early on in his presidency when he gave that speech in the middle east where he basically said the US would no longer prop up leaders that are not supported by their people.
My theory is that China and the US looked at the projections for 20 years ahead: Oil production would no longer be able to keep up with demand at that point. So time to make the change, and screw over Russia while they were at it. No longer having to prop up a cluster of corrupt despots who desperately tried to hold back the future with guns and bribes is a nice bonus. ISIS and Al Qaida is basically what USA reaps from that :(
The reason that we have all of those ships in the first place is to have the option to use them, if needed. Here, the Navy is creating the option of sourcing fuel from domestic, non-petroleum sources. Add to that the building of the infrastructure and development of efficient techniques of production for military and domestic use, and you've got nothing but gravy (which is not quite a biofuel...)
So long as the admiralty keeps the options of nuclear and petroleum fuels as alternatives, I expect this will benefit far more than it will cost.
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.
This started as a cost saving measure when oil was above $100 a barrel. However as Afghanistan wore on and the Taliban would target the fuel tankers that provided the fuel for the generators of american bases, knowing that if they could disrupt those they could take out the base. The navy began to have a second thought.
If a Naval Ship could gather enough algae from the ocean it could create it's own diesel. While not self sufficient it would help alleviate supply logistics that only deployed personnel have. Food can be air dropped, so can bullets, but you can't air drop fuel very safely. It would extend the range of aircraft carriers and other ships significantly.
And that is the real reason for the biofuel push. When you hear about war, you think guns and tanks and planes. You don't think about where the bullets, food, and fuel those things need every day come from and how they get to the battlefield.
A tank requires a lot of fuel. a couple hundred miles is a lot of ground to cover but if you are 50 miles from base and run out of gas in hostile country it is a long walk back,
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.