N.C. region meets requirements for building wind farms

By Jeff Hampton
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 7, 2010

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/nc-region-meets-requirements-building-wind-farms

Camden County, N.C.

Hundreds of wind turbines, each about 400 feet tall, could be coming to at least three farm tracts in northeastern North Carolina - including Hales Lake in Camden County - where the Navy proposes a jet airfield.

Three meteorological towers erected in January near Sandy Road in an area known as the Desert in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties have recorded winds strong enough to make the project viable, said Shelly Cox, director of the Pasquotank County Planning Department. Wind speeds must average 12 to 14 mph.

Depending on year long results that are to conclude in two months, 150 towers producing enough energy to power 75,000 homes could be built, said Craig Poff, senior business developer for Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables. The company markets itself as a leader in wind power and gas storage.

Poff would not give exact wind data from the meteorological towers but said numbers are good enough that the clean energy company is "moving forward" with the project. Iberdrola Renewables has built 41 wind farms across the United States, according to a company website.

Poff confirmed the company has also set up a "met" tower in Currituck County in the Bull Yard fields in Shawboro and has interest in Hales Lake, a farming area of more than 10,000 acres with several landowners.

More than two years ago, the Navy named a tract in Hales Lake as one of five potential sites for a jet practice runway known as an outlying landing field. Citizen groups and elected officials have opposed the project, hiring attorneys, lobbyists and engineers in an effort to stop the Navy's plans. But locals fear the Navy could move ahead anyway.

Massive wind farms with 400-foot towers could make the difference, said Matt Wood, a Pasquotank County commissioner and a partner in Hales Lake farming property.

"It would not be friendly to an OLF," Wood said.

Property owners, including Wood, have talked with Iberdrola Renewables officials and have visited similar projects in other states, he said. Tall wind towers, even in the Bull Yard, could obstruct an airfield in Hales Lake. The two tracts are separated only by swampy woodlands, Wood said.

Invenergy, a Chicago-based energy company, has also expressed interest in Hales Lake, he said.

Wind-farm projects have run into opposition across the country with complaints of noise, unsightly views and harm to wildlife, such as birds flying into the turbine blades. Possible projects here would be in remote farm fields.

Construction of the Desert project would require 590 workers over 18 months, with a local economic impact of $135 million, said Wayne Harris, director of the Albemarle Economic Development Commission.

It would create about 19 permanent jobs paying more than $100,000 each, he said. Citing a state study, he estimated between 30 and 120 indirect jobs and an ongoing economic increase of $89 million to $108 million.

"This is a lot like any high-tech industry," Harris said. "It provides benefits without so much employment but employment that is high quality."

Iberdrola Renewables increased its wind energy generation in the United States between April and June by nearly 32 percent, according to the company website.

Growth came in part from $577 million in federal grants and a "favorable regulatory environment." Projects must be finished and operating before getting federal grants or tax breaks, Poff said.

The U.S. Navy and Biofuels – Part III

(CONSUMER ENERGY REPORT 30 OCT 10) ... Robert Rapier
http://theenergycollective.com/robertrapier/46375/us-navy-and-biofuels-part-iii

This is the concluding installment of my recent interview with Tom Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Navy (Energy). Part I discussed the overall goals of the Navy’s biofuel efforts, and in Part II we covered why coal-to-liquids (CTL) is presently off-limits, and why GTL may be as well. Part III picks up with the human cost of moving fuel into the theater of operations.

The editor of Consumer Energy Report, Sam Avro, joined me in this interview and our questions below will be denoted as “RR” or “SA”. Mr. Hicks’ responses are “TH”.

RR: I saw a recent story that once fuel actually makes it to the theater of operations, it can cost $400 per gallon when all the costs are added up. So are you putting any emphasis on producing the fuel locally? For instance, are you funding efforts that could enable you to produce fuel onsite in Afghanistan?

TH: Yes, I can point you to several efforts. In terms of working with say the Afghan population, and looking to them to create alternative fuels; that’s something that the Department of Defense and my understanding is maybe some other federal agencies are working on to create and stimulate those opportunities. And that’s really more their role to do that. What we are looking to do is to make our expeditionary units more efficient and less reliant on fossil fuels, and we are doing that in a number of ways.

One great example of us reducing our fuel tether, if you will, is our experimental forward operating base. This is something that in March the Marine Corps created in Quantico, Virginia – at the Marine Corps Base Quantico; an experimental or mock forward operating base. And the purpose of that was to test a bunch of alternative fuel technologies, renewable energy technologies so that they could reduce the amount of fossil fuels that they use in theater.

And just to give you a sense – and this is based on Army study – but for every 24 fuel convoys that we bring into the theater, we have one casualty. So that’s one soldier, one marine, killed or wounded who is not otherwise fighting the fight or engaged with the local population to build a nation. That’s a big part of what is driving this as well, that there is a human cost to this; a big price to pay and we are very concerned about that. So with that forward operating base, they identified a number of technologies that seem to have a lot of promise, and they further tested those technologies at a war-gaming exercise to see if they could hold up to the rigors of the battlefield.

From there, they took the best ones out of that exercise and trained a Marine Corps brigade that was deployed just over six months after it was initially tested. So those technologies are in theater today, and just six months ago they were just being tested. And that’s all to the point of reducing our dependence on our generator sets which are all using petroleum products, and being able to lighten the load and be more independent; to decrease our dependency on fossil fuels.

SA: When you talk about technology, are you talking about running their energy systems off of solar or things like that? Can you expound upon that?

TH: Yes, that’s a part of it. As well as things like LED lighting in the tents; having shades that serve two purposes; not only making the tents cooler, but they also have PV embedded in them to generate power. Those are a couple of examples. There are some others where we are putting out PV-generated refrigerators; so that all of the meals-ready-to-eat are kept at the appropriate temperature so they don’t spoil so the marines have food to eat when they are in theater. And all of those things would otherwise be tied to a generator that uses petroleum. Each barrel and each gallon we can take out of theater is one more we don’t have to bring in and stretches out the number of fuel convoys we ultimately need.

SA: Are you in a dedicated department where you deal with the Navy’s energy issues? Do you have a staff working under you? Can you explain the organizational structure?

TH: So, my office works under the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for what’s now Energy, Installations, and Environment. In the past it was Assistant Secretary for Installations and the Environment, but now it’s Energy, Installations, and Environment. And that energy piece is not just related to installations, it covers the entire gamut of our energy use, from our tactical, expeditionary to our facilities and our commercial vehicle fleet; our non-tactical vehicle fleet.

In terms of staffing, I have a Director of Operational Energy, who really deals with all the tactical issues; I have a Director of Shore Energy, and I have another gentleman who is really my Chief of Staff and also deals with special projects that we have on energy issues. Below that we have some additional support; some more junior level support for each of those individuals as well. So that’s how we are currently staffed up.

SA: Is the staff comprised of civilians, or does it include naval officers and enlisted personnel too?

TH: My office is entirely civilian, but there is a Marine Corps and Navy uniformed analog to what the Secretary does. So, we have a Secretary of the Navy, but you also have a Commandant of the Marine Corps and a Chief of Naval Operations. So those two uniformed folks work for the secretary. So what we have is the Secretary, we have a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, there is the Naval Energy Coordination Office, and they head up all the Navy tactical issues. We also have the Marine Corp Expeditionary Energy Office and they head up all of their tactical issues and technical energy issues. We also have installations on both the Navy and Marine Corps, and those are headed up by uniformed side as well. So, kind of think of it as a matrix; there is shore and tactical; Marine Corps and Navy. In each one of those quadrants, there is a uniformed person in the lead, and the Secretary as my role is really to coordinate with all of them, and to work with them in developing policy, issuing policy guidance, tracking progress, establishing strategies, and establishing budgets.

RR: How proactive is your department on these initiatives? Are you out knocking on doors if you see a news story, or are you waiting for companies to come to you in general?

TH: We are doing a little bit of both. We do have a lot of companies coming to us with a whole variety of possibilities; some of which I have never heard of but that are interesting nonetheless. But we are also very active. Prior to my arrival in February, a number of folks from the Assistant Secretary’s office went out to Silicon Valley to really engage with venture capital firms to understand what they are looking at in terms of energy use; what they think are going to be the big winners and where are they putting their money; but also to communicate our goals as well, so they understood where we are going.

Since coming on-board in March, I have gone up to Boston to undertake a similar effort; to meet with venture capital firms out of the Boston area to go through the same process of understanding what they are working on; what technologies and then give them a sense of what our general interest was. That’s one area. We are also looking for small green tech, clean tech companies; so we have talked to a number of them and one of the things we have done recently – and the Secretary announced this last week – is we have released off of our acquisitions website a tool called Green Biz Opps and what this does is really screens through all of the innumerable acquisition opportunities that are on Fed Biz Opps and screens them down to just Navy, energy, and green; and sustainable type of acquisitions. So we list that up on our website and will be updating it on a weekly basis so that companies can come to us; small ones that might not otherwise have the resources; gives them the opportunity to see what kind of opportunities the Navy has. We are also engaged with a number of federal agencies; USDA, DOE, and most recently with the Small Business Administration where we are going to partner together to see how we can get more of these opportunities to these small, green tech, clean tech companies.

Beyond that, we have many of our traditional roads; Navy avenues, whether it is our SBIR program or our STTR program where we can go and get some small businesses that are focused on technologies that are of interest to the Navy. So those continue as well.

RR: When you are talking about opportunities and acquisitions; acquisitions by who? Let’s say you see a promising company, and it passes through your filter, you would acquire that company?

TH: No. The acquisitions are just the opportunities; or procurements; maybe that’s a better way to say it. Procurement opportunities that they have. We don’t acquire other companies.

RR: I wouldn’t have thought so.

TH: These are opportunities that they have, that the Navy is offering them a chance to respond to.

RR: I think that covers all of the questions I have. Will you be available for followups?

TH: Sure. And I would just close by saying that energy security is really critical to our mission’s success. As we look at energy efficiency, we look at that as increasing our mission effectiveness. As we have talked a lot about today, alternative fuels really give the Navy a chance to divest a bit from petroleum to provide some increased insulation from a pretty volatile petroleum market. So that’s a pretty big part of why we are going about this. I just appreciate your time.

Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, NC Goes Green

The oldest fishing pier in the Outer Banks of North Carolina is Jennette’s Pier at Nags Head. The Jennette family acquired the former site of a Civil Works Commission work camp towards the end of the Great Depression (1939). When completed, the fishing pier was 754 feet long and 16 feet wide, with a 28-foot-wide “T” on the end. One of the camp cabins was relocated at the base of the pier, where it was used for “cold drinks and changing rooms.”

The pier was eventually acquired by the North Carolina Aquarium Society in 2003 with plans for development as an “educational outpost”. Hurricane Isabel interrupted these plans, destroying almost 540 feet of the historic pier when it struck the Outer Banks in September of the same year.

The extensive damage to the property allowed for a new concept in the construction of the pier… from wooden pilings and planks to a new concrete facility extending 1,000 feet into the Atlantic. Replacing the 1930’s era cabin at the head of the pier is a 16,000 square foot, LEED certified, facility. According to the North Carolina Aquarium Society’s web site, “The Aquarium-operated complex will feature educational classrooms and programs, alternative energy demonstrations, live animal exhibits, meeting facilities, a snack bar and tackle shop, and a host of other displays and features for good family fun….with great fishing too!” http://www.jennettespier.net/

The most visible feature of this complex is the group of three wind turbines, each generating 10kW of power, enough to supply half of the facilities energy requirements. The Outer Banks (also home to aviation’s most historic site of Kitty Hawk) has an abundance of wind energy. Placement of the turbines along the length of the pier will allow for maximum efficiency of this alternative energy.

Road to Recovery: What's Working - Wind Turbines

Jonesboro, AR

By Maggie Kerkman
Published October 27, 2010
FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/27/road-recovery-whats-working-wind-turbines/

A handful of high tech workers are assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle. It may not look like much now, but soon it will become the finished housing for a wind turbine engine. The group of workers assembling it was hand-picked and trained in Germany by a German company called Nordex. These workers will soon be doing some of the training as Nordex USA expands in Jonesboro where the company plans to add up to 700 jobs in the area by 2014.

Workers here couldn’t be happier. They’re getting paid an average of about $17 an hour and they’re working at a state of the art facility.

Brad Scott is one of them. Before being hired at Nordex, he was out of work for a year and a half, after a Chinese company closed its factory and moved his job overseas. “I went to unemployment, about half of what I was making a week, ” says Scott, “so it was a pretty tough struggle.” Now Scott’s back on the job, in one of the teams doing precision work on the generator housing.

The Jonesboro plant has been in the works for about two years. Nordex is one of a handful of European companies leading the charge for wind energy expansion in the U.S. One of the reasons the company picked Jonesboro was for its central location.

According to Joe Brenner, Nordex USA’s VP of Production: “We currently have projects on the east and in the north and potential projects all over the country. So we are positioned perfectly to fill the needs throughout the United States.” Brenner told Fox News that partnerships with the local university and a community college also helped assure future cooperative research and a trained workforce.

Nordex USA’s President and CEO, Ralf Sigrist, says wind energy is the future. Now he just has to convince the rest of the U.S. that what Europe has been doing for years is how America can fill part of its expanding energy needs. Wind energy, says Sigrist, has high upfront costs but low costs over time. To be profitable, wind energy companies sign long-term fixed rate deals. They may not be the cheapest energy right now, says Sigrist, but the deals could be very competitive over time given the price volatility of fossil fuels.

The U.S. Navy and Biofuels – Part II

The following is a continuation of an interview between Robert Rapier and Thomas Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Navy (Energy). The original article may be found at http://theenergycollective.com/robertrapier/46234/us-navy-and-biofuels-part-ii.

In Part I of my recent interview with Tom Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Navy (Energy), we covered the nature of what the Navy is trying to achieve (and why) with respect to incorporating renewable energy into their operations. Part II begins with a discussion of why coal-to-liquids (CTL) is presently off-limits, and why GTL may be as well. Incidentally, I mention Shell’s Bintulu GTL facility in Malaysia below. I have just spent my entire morning inside their facility, and will have a report up on that visit next week.

—————————–

RR: When I look around the world at synthetic fuel facilities, the only ones that are proven to be able to run at tens of thousands of barrels per day are the coal-to-liquids (CTL) or gas-to-liquids (GTL) plants. South Africa is running CTL at that scale; Sasol’s Secunda facility produces 160,000 bbl/day. GTL may get there; I think Shell’s Bintulu facility is at 15,000 barrels per day and their Pearl GTL project in Qatar is planned for 140,000 bbl/day. So we know that those can operate a large scale, but they are obviously not ‘green.’ So what’s your view on those? Are you open to working with CTL?

TH: Without addressing that specifically, let me give you something that is a federal requirement. As we look to replace petroleum; fossil fuels, from our usage, I think it’s within EISA 2007 (Energy Independence and Security Act) is a provision called Section 526. What it says in general is that any petroleum fuel that we replace with an alternative fuel, must have equal to or lower overall greenhouse gas emissions. Generally speaking, CTL falls on the wrong side of that. There are some notions that CTL combined with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) – that may have some promise. But we haven’t built any CCS sites in this country, so at this point it is probably more theoretical until those get built. That’s a guidepost for us; we have to comply with it. We can’t arbitrarily decide what’s green and what’s not. So meeting Section 526 is on the forefront of our minds. And just to be clear, it is DLA Energy that is required to meet it; it is their burden to bear.

SA: That would seem to conflict a bit with a statement (see here) I read the other day from the Chief of Naval Operations, who said “It’s more than simply how green we can be seen; it really is an operational issue for us…. The Green Hornet and the path to a green fleet are not public relation gimmicks.” So I am just wondering, why is it the Navy’s responsibility in reducing their dependence on petroleum – which is obviously an operational issue; a strategic issue; why do they at the same time have to ensure that they are becoming green? I am all for it, but I just wonder if they have something like CTL that can reduce our dependence on foreign oil – why wouldn’t they be able to go for that?

TH: It’s not a choice. This is a federal requirement that we have that we meet Section 526. And CTL as they are currently being delivered; my understanding is that they don’t fall on the right side of the line in terms of being equal to or less in terms of their overall greenhouse gas emissions. That’s it primarily, but there are also issues of wanting to be good environmental stewards and have or created unintended consequences by solving one problem and creating another.

SA: So basically you are saying that it is an outside requirement, where the Navy’s main focus is to reduce their petroleum usage, but obviously they are bound by federal law requirements that may prohibit them from reducing it in certain cases where it won’t be seen as becoming greener, as is the case with CTL.

TH: The objective in this, we don’t want to replace a fossil fuel with another fuel that has worse environmental attributes. Okay? Period. Fortunately, that’s what Section 526 tells us, but it’s what we believe as well; it’s the right thing to do. That’s not a direct comment on CTL, we are hearing of applications where CTL with other technologies can get across that threshold, and thus they would be viable considerations for DLA to purchase.

RR: In my position as CTO, I hear pitches from people every week. Some are credible, some are half-baked, and some violate the laws of physics. So I spend a lot of time on due diligence. I would imagine that you get many more; people must be knocking on your door all the time. How do you filter out the credible from the non-credible? I think Solazyme had an interesting story; they said they were able to deliver a barrel of fuel for you to test. Is that the metric; tell people to go produce some fuel and then you will talk to them?

TH: Well, I think that one worked in that case. For me, there is a range of things. We do get a fair amount. Fortunately, we have the federal procurement process that talks about how we go about doing these types of engagements. So we can’t get too far along. But in terms of just evaluating them, if it’s an area I am not quite sure of, I will send it over to our Office of Naval Research (ONR) and have them take a look at it. They may have already looked at it in the past, they may be working on it with another company, or it may be something they have looked at and said “it’s just not going to work for the Navy.” I usually rely on the ONR quite a bit, especially on some of the newer technologies that aren’t common in the public domain.

RR: Is your budget that is devoted to biofuel development public information? Is that something you can share?

TH: It is, it is in the president’s budget, PB11, but honestly I couldn’t tell you what that number is off the top of my head. We have some people who could. Obviously the FY12 budget is before Congress and is pre-decisional at this point, so there is no point in commenting on that. I can say this; what’s in FY11 budget, and what’s proposed for FY12 and beyond supports the testing and certification program and will support the sailing of the Great Green Fleet and local ops in 2012 and the deployment in 2016. So that’s all programmed in. Again, that’s all pre-decisional and hasn’t been approved, but as planned those things are covered.

RR: If you look at the prices that have been paid, clearly much higher than fossil prices. Solazyme’s CEO clarified that some of that was for R&D. I don’t know about the camelina deal; it looked to be $67.50 a gallon there. Maybe that’s because nobody is really producing camelina; I don’t know. But what is your long-term view on biofuel prices? Do you expect them to become competitive with current oil prices (presently $80/bbl)?

TH: Well, I think they have to get competitive with oil prices. I would choose not to use the word current, because today we are looking at $2.85 a gallon, and what did we pay three years ago? It’s very cyclical; it changes frequently, but I think long-term it has to be competitive with fuel prices. The quantities we are buying today, there’s R&D that goes into that, there’s a lot of testing and certification that we are buying, and these are very small batches. We purchase as the Navy roughly 32 million barrels of fuel per year, so that’s 1.2 or 1.3 billion gallons of fuel, and the quantities you are talking about here are pretty small; 20,000, 50,000, 100,000 gallons, which is pretty small relative to that. And to an extent, you pay for that lack of economy of scale at this point. But again, it’s working toward a testing and certification program, we’re not purchasing those fuels for operational use. I think that’s a really important thing to consider.

RR: So those products they are delivering, those are finished products? For instance, they are doing the hydrocracking and refining to turn them into JP-5, for instance?

TH: I believe that what we get is the mix; the 50:50 blend; 50% algae-based or camelina-based plus JP-5 or F-76 as the case may be.

RR: Besides algae and camelina, which have been pretty public, are there other oil-based crops that you are looking at that people have been able to supply for testing?

TH: I will probably have to defer to someone down at our testing facility to tell you which ones they are looking at. But I know from a feedstock point of view – and I don’t know if these discussions have resulted in us testing the fuel – but there are discussions around jatropha, around bagasse, maybe some sugarcane and some others that seem to have the right environmental attributes. And again, going to the Section 526 compliance piece would be a big part of that.

RR: When you mention bagasse, I presume you are talking about producing ethanol? I guess you could go gasification and produce Fischer-Tropsch liquids. But are you also looking at gasoline replacements, or are you strictly looking for diesel and jet replacements?

TH: Are you talking specifically for our commercial vehicle fleet?

RR: Yes.

TH: So there we have about 50,000 vehicles in our fleet and we have a churn rate of about 10,000 vehicles per year; we buy and lease all of our vehicles through GSA (General Services Administration) and we return about 10,000 per year back to them. As of today, 35% of the fleet is alternative fuel-capable; so they can take B20, E85; it varies obviously by vehicle type. We have CNG, we have a number of all-electric vehicles that we are pilot-testing; even some hydrogen ones as well. And certainly we have flex-fuel and hybrid electrics, and so we have a wide range of different ones. Our goals there are to reduce our petroleum usage by 50% by 2015. From 2003 to 2009 we reduced it by over 30%, and so we are going to go another 50% beyond that. And we are going to do it by purchasing and leasing alternative fuel vehicles through GSA.

RR: So those vehicles you mentioned, do CNG and hydrogen meet Section 526? I think CNG would have a lower greenhouse gas footprint, but I am not sure hydrogen would in its current configuration where it is produced mostly from natural gas.

TH: In a pilot effort, it is more about testing the capabilities of it. Longer term, we still have to go through the compliance path to make sure the overall environmental attributes of that fuel is better tha the fuel it is replacing. With hydrogen, it depends on how you make it. That can obviously play into that.

—————–

Part III, the concluding installment, will pick up by discussing the advantages of using fuel produced near the point of use. One statistic that was provided was that for every 24 fuel convoys that we bring into the theater, there is one casualty.

The U.S. Navy and Biofuels – Part I

Sailors assigned to Riverine Group 1 conduct maneuvers aboard Riverine Command Boat (Experimental) (RCB-X) at Naval Station Norfolk. The RCB-X is powered by an alternative fuel blend of 50 percent algae-based and 50 percent NATO F-76 fuels to support the secretary of the Navy's efforts to reduce total energy consumption on naval ships. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gregory N. Juday)




The following is an interview with Assistant Secretary of the Navy for for Energy, Thomas W. Hicks and Robert Rapier as posted today on Consumer Energy Report:

The U.S. Navy and Biofuels – Part I
Posted by Robert Rapier on Tuesday, October 26, 2010

On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 I conducted an interview with Tom Hicks, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Navy (Energy). The idea for the interview originated from my recent essays on Solazyme (here and here) in which the Navy’s investments in biofuels were discussed. After the Solazyme essays were published, Consumer Energy Report editor Sam Avro contacted the Navy for comment, and they offered to set up an interview with Mr. Hicks.

I was joined by Sam, and our questions below will be denoted as “RR” or “SA”. Mr. Hick’s responses are “TH”. The goal of the interview was simply to distill down for a general audience what the Navy is trying to accomplish. The interview went on for over 40 minutes, so it will be broken down into multiple parts.

RR: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What brought you to this job?

TH: Shortly after college I began working for the Navy as a civilian. I started the energy program for what was then Navy Public Works Center – Washington. That was really doing energy efficiency efforts in the tens of millions of dollars throughout the region. That was kind of early 90’s. From there I went to the EPA, where I created Energy Star for Buildings. Instead of Energy Star for Computers and many other things that you are probably familiar with – I created the application for buildings while there. I implemented that and ran it for a number of years and then went on to the U.S. Green Building Council, where among other things I headed up the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for a couple of years, and I also started and ran the international program there as well. From there, this opportunity came back, and it was a way for me to in many ways come home, back to Navy, and kind of apply both my energy and green building roots to what the Navy’s aspirations were.

RR: In talking to people, I think a lot of people don’t really understand the relationship between the Navy and the companies you work with. For example, are you doing your own research, or only funding outside research? So what exactly is your scope, particularly as it relates to biofuels?

TH: As you probably know, the Navy, as with the Army and Air Force – we purchase our fuel through what used to be called DESC (Defense Energy Support Center) and is now DLA – Energy (Defense Logistics Agency). So we all purchase our fuel from them to power the fleet. For us it’s mostly JP-5 and F-76 and a little bit of JP-8 through DLA Energy. In terms of research, what we are doing – and this stems from the Secretary’s vision and goals that he laid out in October 2009. What he laid out was what the Navy is going to do going forward in the future. There are goals about energy efficient acquisitions, but the two that are the most relevant here are sailing the “Great Green Fleet” which is an idea that hearkens back to the “Great White Fleet” around the turn of the last century that Teddy Roosevelt sailed; this idea that in 2012 we will put a carrier strike group in local operations entirely on alternative fuels and then in 2016 we are going to deploy that strike group on all alternative fuels. So that’s one marker. The other is that by 2020, 50% of all of the Navy’s energy consumption will come from alternative sources. Those are the kinds of guideposts, the vision that we are working toward. In terms of the research, what we are doing today is doing the research, testing, and certification on all the engines in our inventory. That includes all of our surface vessels, as well as all of our aircraft, and testing them to use a 50:50 blend of biofuels, and whatever the case may be; JP-5, JP-8, or F-76.

RR: So you are testing fuels, but not actually trying to produce any yourselves?

TH: No, that’s really not our role to play in this market. There are many other entities that are in that space, and we are looking to utilize those fuels in the blends I mentioned before.

RR: Thanks, that helps clarify one point. So, what are the primary drivers for this, and what is driving the timelines? Is this coming from policy, where they are saying “We really need this”, or from scientists saying “We can do this?”

TH: I think what’s driving it for us is that we see it as enhancing our war-fighting capabilities. It is about becoming more energy independent, more energy secure, and playing what we consider a leading role, not only in the Department of Defense, but in the Federal Government in seeing the realization of an energy efficient economy. That’s what’s really driving us, and that’s consistent with the President’s objectives for the Federal Government, and we see ourselves playing a leading role in that. Having more homegrown, secure, independent sources of fuel is going to be critical to us to be able to complete our mission going forward.

RR: The U.S. Joint Forces released a report earlier in the year (see this story) that warned of the potential for a 10 million barrel a day shortfall by 2015. I am wondering about your opinion on that. Oil supplies, short and long-term; do you think that’s going to be an issue?

TH: I am not an expert in those areas. I can probably point you to some people who are. I was at a conference yesterday, and I understand we currently have about a 500,000 barrel per day surplus, which is pretty tight, but I can’t really comment on that. But of course as we pursue this effort, what we are looking to do is to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. By going for these alternative fuels and biofuels, we can find more independent, secure sources.

SA: Sam here. If I could go back to the original question posed by Robert, where he asked what is driving the changeover towards alternative fuels and greener energy; is it more of a policy thing, which you explained to us and obviously we understand the importance from a security aspect, and about that no one is going to argue about, but I think Robert’s question was more about whether it was wishful thinking. More like “We would love to be in a position to be less reliant on crude oil and the sources we are getting the crude oil from” – or is it the scientists telling you “This is something we can do?” So the question is really, “Is this something we can do, or something we hope we can do?”

TH: Certainly from a technical perspective, as we are proving out through our testing and certification program, the fuel works just as well as other fuels. The blend, the fuel; is transparent to the operator. These are drop-in, so from that perspective it works. So I am not sure if that answers your question from a scientific perspective.

RR: I think the question is, “Can they deliver?” I agree with you that these are drop-in fuels (we are specifically talking about synthetic fuel replacements, not biodiesel or ethanol), as I have seen lots of testing on them. But are the companies realistic about the timelines in which they can deliver?

TH: Well, I think that’s one of the key things we are sending out is a demand signal to the market. So what we are saying is that by 2012, to test the fleet and do the local ops that I mentioned with the Great Green Fleet, we need 8,000 barrels of biofuel. To deploy that in 2016, we need 80,000 barrels. Those are certainly quantities that – we have talked to industry – and they will have no problem with delivering. By 2020, we go from 8,000 to 80,000 to 8 million barrels, is what our need is to meet that goal of 50% alternative fuel. So if we were to sit passively back and not send out the demand signal, perhaps we would have a different outcome. We choose a leadership position, and part of that position is sending out a strong demand signal to the market, that if you can deliver this; if you establish this; if you can meet it at a competitive cost long-term, then this is something we are going to commit to. So again, we are going through the entire certification and testing of every engine in our fleet, including the diesel back-up generators on our carriers.

SA: I just want to clarify one point. So you are telling me, obviously I understand your strategy for getting there, but you are confident that this strategy will take you to a point, where I have seen the Secretary of the Navy say that they want to be sure that 50% of total energy consumption will come from alternative energy sources by 2020, and reducing the use of petroleum by 50% in the commercial fleet by 2015; so you think those are viable goals?

TH: Those are viable goals, and those are goals that are driving our strategies, and driving our budget to make those goals a reality. And again, it’s not just the Navy; we send I think an important demand signal, but if you look at us relative to commercial aviation we are very small, but at the same time I think we represent a very powerful part; and we are also doing this through partnerships with others; whether it’s USDA in trying to create a vibrant biofuel market in Hawaii, or it’s working with DLA Energy to make sure they understand what our needs are, and when we will have those; it’s also working with DOE, through their loan guarantee program and other investment programs into biofuels; we are working all those groups to really make sure that a market takes off on biofuels. We are doing everything within our control to do that.

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The next installment will begin by discussing the reasons that the Navy can’t use fuel produced from coal.