By Emelie Rutherford
The Navy successfully ran a riverine gunboat on alternative fuel at full speed last week as part of testing leading up to a 2012 launch of a Green Strike Group of ships.
Rear Adm. Philip Cullom, director of the Chief of Naval Operations Energy and Environmental Readiness Division, told reporters yesterday the boat “performed fine” running Oct. 22 on a half-algae, half-petroleum fuel.
The 49-foot experimental Riverine Command Boat (RCB-X) was put through several tests before the final full-speed demonstration with the blend of hydro-processed renewable diesel, called HR-D.
During the final full-powered run, Cullom said, the diesel-engined RCB-X traveled approximately a mile at 44.5 knots, which is above the “normally top-rated speed” of 43 knots.
“I talked to the coxswain who was sitting next to me, and he…said it ran just fine,” the admiral told reporters during a conference call. “He didn’t know the difference between when it had a full load of petroleum or this biofuel load that running as part of these tests.”
Cullom called the full-power test “a Wright Brothers moment for the Navy,” which hopes to have the Green Strike Group of ships powered by alternate fuels operating locally in 2012 before a Great Green Fleet is deployed in 2016.
Cullom’s division leads the Navy’s Task Force Energy, which he is working on five energy goals–which the admiral dubbed “aggressive”–laid out last year by Secretary Ray Mabus. The goals are: to have half of Navy and Marine Corps energy consumption come from alternate sources by 2020; for at least 50 percent of shore-based energy to derive from alternate sources also by 2020, with half of the installations at net-zero; to demonstrate the Great Green Strike Groups locally in 2012 and sail it by 2016; to reduce petroleum use in the commercial fleet by 50 percent; and to weigh energy factors when evaluating contract proposals for systems and buildings.
The HR-D fuel the RCB-X used is a drop-in replacement fuel that looks, smells, and acts like petroleum, yet is a biofuel intended to remove instead of add carbon dioxide throughout the process. Such a fuel gives the Navy flexibility, Cullom said.
“So one day we’re not going to change and reengineer the engines, we’re just going to be using a different fuel,” he said. “And you don’t have to put money to…alter the technology of the engines we have. You’re going to engineer the fuel to meet a certain standard so that it looks, smells, and acts like petroleum.”
The first-generation of biofuels that emerged 10-15 years ago did not do well in a marine environment. For example, the fuels would separate, biological growth would occur in them, and they would cause corrosion.
Cullom said the HR-D is more of a second- or third-generation biofuel that does not cause such problems.
The HR-D fuel is expensive, but its cost is dropping, the admiral said.
“Any time you’re an early adopter on things, the costs are going to be more,” he said.
While the initial gallons for the first batch of the algae-based biofuel cost roughly $400 each, the price is now a just over $60 per gallon, he said.
“There’s a plethora of companies that are developing these fuels (and) are hard at work on how to reduce those costs, how to scale up their business and how to try to make sure that their business matches their logistics so that they are a profitable business at competitive rates towards petroleum,” he said.
Cullom noted that Mabus views this issues as an “inverse Field of Dreams,” referring to the film famous for the saying “if you build it they will come.”
“In this case, if we show the demand signals that we have for this–which is 8 million barrels of biofuel in 2020, 80,000 barrels in 2016–then the industry will be able to respond as a good capital market and be able to work towards understanding that there’s a demand signal out there,” Cullom said.
To keep the costs for the Navy low in the meantime, he said, the service is doing test and certification protocols to ensure it can use the emerging fuels in its engines.
“That will show that not only do we have a demand signal for it, but that we are prepared and ready as soon as that fuel is available,” he said.