Sky's the Limit on Navy's Biofuel Focus

by Bill Loveless (USA Today) U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has made alternative energy a top priority since taking office in 2009, but this week he took his commitment to new heights, literally. The civilian leader for the Navy climbed aboard an EA-18G Growler fighter jet as a passenger on one of a series of test flights using 100% biofuel.

Biofuels are not new for the U.S. Navy and Air Force, which have been experimenting with blends on aircraft and ships for several years. In fact, all Navy ships and aircraft are now certified to run on up to 50-50 blends of conventional and alternative fuels.

But the flights taking place this month at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland mark the first time the Navy has gone all out to experiment with biofuels for aviation.

The man spearheading the Navy’s move to green energy on air, at sea and on land, Dennis McGinn, says the military service will meet that target, with biofuels increasingly contributing to the success.

“This will be part of the new normal,” McGinn, the Navy’s assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment, told me recently on the Columbia Energy Exchange, a podcast at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. “We’ll be putting biofuel blends into our ships in the form of marine diesel. We’ll be putting it into our helicopters and our jet aircraft.”

Navy tests of biofuels in aircraft began in 2010, when an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet flew on a 50-50 blend of conventional jet diesel fuel and biofuel made from camelina, a plant whose pods contain small, oily seeds.

Other trials took place in 2012 when the Navy used similar blends of fuel on both aircraft and ships during a Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise.

In April, for example, United Airlines began using a blend of 30% biofuel and 70% regular jet fuel for flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco. READ MORE WATCH VIDEO (Pew Charitable Trusts)