McGinn: Navy Energy Programs Are ‘All About Warfighting’

by John Grady (USNI News) When asked what happens to the Navy’s energy initiatives when President Barack Obama leaves office in January, the service’s top civilian official overseeing those efforts said, “Nothing”—because the business and warfighting cases “just makes sense.”

Retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, speaking Tuesday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., added, “It isn’t a zero sum game” in achieving energy, economic and environmental security. “It’s time to change,” a broad concept from better efficiency, different kinds of fuels, solar power, hybrid-electric drive in amphibious ships and refitted destroyers, etc.—which he said has been adopted in both the Navy and the Marine Corps.

“There is also a constrained budget,” said Phyllis Cuttino, an energy expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Any money they [the Navy and the Defense Department] can save can be put into mission.”

“This is all about warfighting,” McGinn said. In July, during the Rim of the Pacific exercise involving 54 nations, he said, the U.S. Navy will be “providing samples of our biofuel blends” for others to examine. In June, an Italian oiler will replenish American warships in the Mediterranean with biofuel blends produced there.

While petroleum prices now are low—fluctuating from about $30 a barrel several months ago to about $40 now, McGinn said that the Navy takes a long view on energy prices and energy needs—”five years, 10 years, 15 years down the road, over the horizon.”

The current low prices are also creating a movement to consolidation in the energy production market, said Daniel Chiu, of the Atlantic Council. That, in turn, he said, could drive prices back up. “The only prudent thing is to hedge,” as the Navy is doing.

In that view, McGinn said the service expects increased competition for fuel and other energy sources as the world’s population increases from 7 billion to 9 billion. In the United States, continued climate change has produced severe droughts in California—with its significant Navy and Marine Corps presence—and “King Tides” in Hampton Roads, the largest concentration of naval forces in the world. READ MORE