By Geoff Fein
With the Navy and the Department of Agriculture set to sign an agreement Thursday to coordinate research activities, the Navy continues to take steps to achieve the goal of making its shore-based facilities, aviation assets and surface ship fleet green.
Additionally, in the coming months, the Navy and Marine Corps will begin several initiatives to test biofuels, as well as look for ways to cut down on the number of batteries Marines need to carry to conduct missions.
The Navy has invested in a variety of alternative energy projects ranging from wind turbines, photovoltaic and geothermal systems, to research into wave and current energy, Chris Tindal, deputy director for renewable energy, told Defense Daily recently.
The service has been recognized over the years for its work in alternative energy. Most recently the Navy received Platt‘s “Green Energy Initiative of the Year.” According to the Navy, the award recognizes the Navy’s efforts in developing alternative forms of energy such as wind and solar photovoltaic energy generation, solar thermal energy systems, geothermal energy generation and ground source heat pumps.
The Navy has a 270 megawatt (MW) geothermal plant at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., Tindal noted. “All that power goes into the California grid.”
The Navy has an energy joint venture with a private company that installs the geothermal power plant and sells the power to the grid, Tindal said.
“We get a small portion of that which we turn around and put into energy projects,” he said.
China Lake does not get any of the energy produced by the geothermal plant, Tindal said.
The Navy also has three wind turbine sites: Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow, Calif., Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and San Clemente Island, Calif.
The Navy and Marine Corps cut the ribbon on the Barstow site in March 2008. Tindal said the turbine is generating 1.5 MW of power.
Guantanamo Bay has four 3.8Mw diesel hybrid wind turbines and the San Clemente Island location has three, Tindal added.
The Navy has also been pursuing ways to draw energy from the seas. Currently, the service has the third generation of its wave buoy power effort ongoing at Marine Corps Base, Hawaii.
The Navy has been collecting data on a research and development effort using underwater wind turbine-like platforms to capture energy from New York’s East River. That effort is now moving westward to Puget Sound, Wash. Tindal said the technology will provide power to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
“In Puget Sound, they have some good currents just like in the East River,” he said. “We are doing the preliminary work, putting in [an] EIS (Environmental Impact Statement), making sure we are not harming anything in the environment.”
Another ocean energy technology the Navy is investigating is the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC).
Using federal stimulus funds obtained through the Recovery Act, the Navy has contracted with Lockheed Martin [LMT], which is doing design and development of certain aspects of OTEC, Tindal said.
“We don’t have a full blueprint, but we will have a blueprint on some of the things they have been looking at,” he said.
At the end of the next fiscal year, the Navy will determine what it got from Lockheed Martin’s work and determine the next step.
“OTEC was one of those technologies proven back in the 70s. Lockheed Martin had a small barge and it was producing 50 kW of power,” Tindal said. “We want to take it to the megawatt size. This one [Lockheed Martin is] trying to put under development is a five to 10 MW size plant. “
He added 5 MW is probably what Lockheed Martin will end up with.
The Navy will be conducting this effort in Hawaii as well, Tindal said.
Across many of its southwest United States facilities, the Navy has been installing photovoltaic systems.
“The Marine Corps have gone on record and have a policy out now, if they are building a new building or doing any major renovations to a roof they will consider putting on solar photovoltaic, solar thermal,” Tindal said. “The Marine Corps have done that [and the] Navy is following along. The Marine Corps went on their own and did that. We want the services to be bold and innovative.”
The Navy is also looking to install solar photovoltaic systems in Guam when the build up of facilities on the island nation begin.
“We are going to do lead buildings like we do anywhere, making sure we have the energy efficiency standard put into it,” he said. “And we are putting photovoltaic on the roofs as well too. We are going to do a big effort doing renewable energy and energy efficient-type buildings in Guam.”
Biofuels is the next major area the Navy is looking at for both shore and expeditionary power.
“We are looking at a Camelina-based biofuel that will be a JP-5 (jet) type of a fuel,” Tindal said.
He referred to it as a drop-in fuel.
“We don’t have to change anything, we [don’t have to] reconfigure the engine. You can put regular JP-5 with a Camelina 50-50 blend into the same tank,” Tindal said. “You don’t have to have special storage, a special delivery device, it is in essence a JP-5.”
The Navy is also looking at an algae-based F76 diesel fuel marine that will also be a 50-50 blend, he added.
Those fuel technologies are still on the cusp because there are not that many companies producing it, Tindal said.
“We have tested JP-5 Camelina-based in an F404 engine, a Hornet engine. We did that on Oct. 13. We felt that was a Wright brothers moment because that was like the first time we had gone out there and done that,” he added. “We put that engine into afterburner mode as well. That was a very unique thing we did.”
In February, the Navy is going to do a similar test on a General Electric [GE] F414-400 engine that is used on the Boeing [BA] F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Tindal said.
“Then, on Earth Day 2010, we are going to be flying what we call the ‘Green Hornet.’ A Super Hornet that will have some green paint on it. It will fly at (Naval Air Station) Pax River,” he said.
Also in February, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., the service is going to be opening up an experimental forward operating base facility, Tindal said.
“They are going to get vendors to come in and display their latest and greatest technologies that we can use on the front line,” he said. “A lot of the convoys that go to the front line are susceptible to IEDs, and two of the things they carry to the front line are water and fuel. If we can cut back on the fuel we deliver, yes, we have to deliver water, but if we can cut back on the number of convoys, that’s that many Marine lives we can possibly save.”