Navy Going Green

Adam Lynch

At a symposium last week, U.S. Navy Secretary and former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus said the Navy was going green.

by Adam Lynch
October 14, 2009

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says the Navy will go "green" in the next few years. Mabus appeared at the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Symposium Lecture Series Friday at the Jackson State University Student Center, where he surprised Myrlie Evers-Williams, the wife of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, with the announcement that he was naming a 700-foot naval supply ship in her husband's honor.

Mabus also spoke eagerly about the Navy's growing resolve to create more fuel-efficient ships and aircraft, and its adoption of energy-saving policies and the use of fuel from renewable sources. "I think my chances (of arranging green mandates for the Navy) are pretty high," Mabus told a group of reporters. "... It's a strategic war-fighting thing. And the big advantage we have is that we build our ships, and we control our bases, and as we move into new energy technologies, we can design them into our ships and our aircraft."

Mabus boasted that the Navy has already built a new diesel-electric hybrid ship in Pascagoula, which saved $2 million in fuel costs on one simple trip to San Diego, Calif.

The secretary's push falls in line with a May Military Advisory Board report that actually acknowledged for the first time the growing threat of climate change to national security. (The board made no such admissions under the oversight of former President George W. Bush.)

A Department of Defense News report reveals that the Defense Department's total energy costs for fiscal 2006 and 2007 was above $13 billion, and that the 2008 spike in oil prices pushed the department's 2008 energy bill to $20 billion. The advantages of using less fuel appear obvious to cost-conscious military leaders.

Even the Pentagon—no paragon of cost consciousness—is getting in on the act. A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program is currently working to perfect jet fuel developed from varied sources, including algae, bacteria and rapeseed. Mabus referenced the potential of ubiquitous algae as a likely fuel source during his initial speech to symposium attendants last week.

The Pentagon also reported to the American Forces Press Service in June that it is considering designing its newer military vehicles with the use of lighter and stronger titanium, rather than steel, for better fuel efficiency and safety.

Other, more futuristic goals of the department include the development of power-generating military clothing, possibly consisting of malleable solar collectors stitched directly into clothing, or even a collection of small dynamos powered by a marching soldier's body movements.

"We're about to test the first Green Hornet, our attack aircraft, the FA-18. The Green Hornet will fly on alternative fuels, and I'm particularly proud of that, because cellulose-based ethanol can be grown here in Mississippi. The new generations of alterative fuels can be rotated with wheat in Mississippi and throughout the upper Midwest, all the way down to the Gulf Coast. In fact, any plant with a cellular structure can be used to produce it, so we don't have to be dependent on the more volatile areas of the world," Mabus said.

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