Green Riverine

The Navy will soon try taking biofuels up creeks and waterways on the experimental riverine command boat, according to an announcement from Naval Sea Systems Command.

NAVSEA's advanced fuels program office will test an RCB-X at full power using an alternative fuel this Friday in Norfolk, VA, the press release says. NAVSEA spokesman Alan Baribeau said the boat will run off a mix of 50-percent algae-based biofuel and 50-percent NATO F76 marine diesel fuel.

At the Navy Energy Forum last week, Rear Adm. Thomas Eccles said that NAVSEA may focus on algae-based fuels rather than the camelina fuel that was used for testing on the F/A-18 “Green Hornet.”

"We're going through the process now of [setting] requirements on that fuel, even at a premium, and then demonstrating it, sometimes at sea but generally on land first, and in prototypical ways qualifying fuels with engines," he said. "We started small and we're working our way up."

Testing on a boat used to patrol Navy yards, an air-cushioned landing craft and an aircraft carrier emergency diesel generator is scheduled to follow later this fiscal year. In fiscal year 2012, the Navy plans to test biofuels on its Self-Defense Test Ship.

Vice Adm. William Burke, deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, told Inside the Navy last week that the jury is still out on whether algae and camelina are the optimal biofuel feedstocks for meeting the service's needs.

“I don't know what the other options are right now, but I guess my point is that I don't know that camelina and algae are the holy grail,” he said. “We're not going to use those to replace 50 percent of our fuel supply. They'll be a part of it, and hopefully there will be other options that present themselves . . . whether they're bio or synthetic or whatever they might be.”