Posted on 10/16/2009 2:01:58 PM PDT by smokingfrog
The United States Navy is taking a big leap forward in "greening" its 50,000-strong, gas-guzzling fleet of vehicles, committing to a 50 percent cut in oil use by 2015, the Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus declared in a speech at the Naval Energy Forum.
That's not all. Mabus said the Navy will attempt to get 50 percent of its total energy from alternative sources by 2020, including its ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles and bases. Currently, that figure is at 17 percent.
The reason: The Navy's imported oil addiction is socking the service with billions of dollars in losses. The Navy's new "hybrid of the seas," the USS Makin Island (pictured above), is expected to yield $250 million in savings over its lifetime, Mabus said. The ship has an electric motor that kicks in at low speeds. The money-saving hybrid-electric systems will soon be installed on 12 vessels.
The same is true for planes. Improving the efficiency of each aircraft by just 3 percent would save the Navy 127,000 barrels of fuel per plane, per year. That's $15 million per aircraft, annually, at today's fuel prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at solveclimate.com ...
Dear Reader and the clown posse will simply mothball half the fleet.
Well at least the Navy doesn’t need the EPA’s permission to put a reactor online...
Galley slaves and tiers of oars. That’s how they’ll do it.
That’s the ticket. CAFE standards for our military. Sheesh.
“socking the Navy with losses”?? Our Armed Forces can’t have “losses” as their are not businesses with generated revenues and costs. They can have budgets and exceed their budgets, but these are not “losses.”
A 50% reduction would be fine if we had more nuclear powered ships, but I suspect Obama is thinking more along the lines of sails and oars.
Build more nukes.
they are going to harness the repressed sexual energy from putting females on subs and power their ships through it.
I'll be looking forward to seeing the Blue Angel.
I have no problem with the Navy incorporating new power systems *if* they are genuinely more efficient *and* don’t affect their war-fighting ability. For example, fuel-cell submarines are showing some real promise - super quiet, can stay under far longer than the old diesel boats, etc.
That said, we could address the Navy’s conventional fuel needs (and likely every other service branch) through the gasification of coal. The technology has been around since before WW I. It wouldn’t be the cheapest way to make gas or diesel, but it would use a resource we have LOTS of here in the States. It would also probably put a lot of people back to work in places like western Kentucky, southeastern Illinois, etc (i.e. coal regions).
The plus in being more efficient is reducing the massive amount of fuel that needs to be supplied, often over long distances, to our forces. In both gulf wars our land forces had to hold up for fuel to be delivered. In WWII fuel supply was an enormous hindrance in Europe.
Doing this is 100% the right thing for non-”green” reasons.
And what provides power for the (2) 5,000 bhp AC Electric Motors? Could it be that the main gas turbine power plant? Honestly, are the idiots in charge of the Navy, too? I don't imagine that a ship the size of an LHD is operating off batteries (and batteries need to be charged).
Excellent point, but I don't think it applies here. During normal cruising this ship is going to be operating off it's gas turbines. And I bet that those gas turbines are going to be driving generators when the ship is crawling around on it's relatively puny AC electric motors.
Obviously, when not conducting operations, solar panels and wind
turbines can be deployed to charge the batteries.
Tony: I don’t think the present administration wants to display such arrogance and power ;-)
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