Ship Diesel from vegetable oil and alternative jet fuel

For the first time sent the U.S. Navy warships in biofuels in the great naval maneuvers in the Pacific. The expensive green fuel pushes on the home front with fierce headwinds. Five vessels belonging to the aircraft carrier battle group 'USS Nimitz' drive, with a mixture of biodiesel and petroleum.
Located in the Pacific breaks at the Eco-Age: As of Friday is French fries oil drive the turbines of warships and F/A-18 fighter aircraft will take off with algae fuel from the deck of an aircraft carrier. The envisioned by the U.S. Navy "Great Green Fleet" in Hawaii makes a test run.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus dreams of the "Great Green Fleet".
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The first aircraft carrier in the world
The first major use of biofuels in the U.S. Navy story is the most important contribution to RIMPAC, such as the bi-annual naval maneuvers in the Pacific called. At the military exercise taking 42 warships, six submarines, 200 aircraft and 25 000 men and women from 22 nations. The eco-contingent includes parts of the "Carrier Strike Group" to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "USS Nimitz". Five warships, including a cruiser and a 9000-ton destroyers go, "green".

Five times more expensive than regular fuel


The idea for the test project was Navy Secretary Ray Mabus of. He bought at a price of $ 12 million 1.7 million liters of biofuels. Mabus aims to convert by 2020 half of the ships and aircraft of the U.S. naval forces on bio. "We want to show that this is not just a fashion, not just the flavor of the day," he told Wired. "It is serious. It's going to happen it real. "

The Mabus said, however, before the U.S. Congress is looking at his numbers exactly. Although the Navy beigibt their alternative fuels made from organic products such as used cooking oil and algae oil, the same amount of traditional petroleum products, the cost per liter of mixture 50-50 seven dollars about five times as much as the conventional fuels. This extravagant experiment could not afford the Navy in times when they do not even have enough money to make all their ships afloat, members of Congress said at hearings. "Defense dollars to use it to subsidize new energy technologies is not the task of the Navy," said Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Vietnam veteran and former presidential candidate.

Congress raises the anchor

As a result, added the appropriate committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, one section into the Pentagon budget in order to slow the Navy. Except in limited trials in the future they must not use fuels that are more expensive than conventional marine diesel and jet fuel. Both chambers of Congress blessing from the defense budget is provisionally prohibited the Navy to buy more alternative fuels and planned $ 170 million to invest in new refineries for biofuels.

For Mabus' grand schemes that is a major setback. The State had argued that the Navy could not afford it, year after year to spend more money on petroleum products. Any increase in oil prices by one dollar per barrel would cost the Navy $ 31 million a year, said Mabus. Last year, the U.S. military spent $ 18 billion overall for fuel, much more than a few years earlier.

Technically and strategically limited value

Proponents of biotechnology course referring to the history of seafaring. Only ships were moved by oars, then wind, coal, oil, and eventually nuclear power - and always have been the new techniques first used by resourceful naval commanders. For example, Winston Churchill decided to drive as First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, British warships with oil instead of coal, which gave the Royal Navy a few knots more speed toward the Imperial Navy.

Mabus and the Navy leadership also presume that America could enlarge the Navy as one of the world's largest fuel buyers market for biofuels and reduce prices. Skeptics believe, however, is not that the green aspirations are realistic. Technically, the bio-fuel blends only the advantage that they are slightly lighter and burn a few degrees cooler, which possibly extend the life of engines and turbines. But they do not the ships faster.

In strategic terms would have no benefits of alternative fuels, critics say. They point to a study by the Rand National Defense Research Institute last year, according to the Navy by 2020 at best, 25 000 barrels biofuels are available - a fraction of the daily requirement of 1.2 million barrel addition, the study calculated that "green" fuels only at an oil price of about $ 110 per barrel permanently be competitive. The oil price is currently $ 80.