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U.S. Navy sets sail with a hybrid
The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island remains docked in the port city of Valparaiso on August 20, 2009.
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Jeremy Hobson: Oil is trading around $85 a barrel this morning, and regular unleaded gasoline is averaging $3.61 a gallon nationwide. Those figures are important to just about everyone with a car. They are really important to the U.S. military, which spent $13 billion on fuel last year. Well in the next month or two, the U.S. navy is going to do something about that -- with a new hybrid electric warship.
From the Marketplace sustainability desk,
Scott Tong reports.
Man: Please watch your step. We have some lights out on these next couple levels here.
Scott Tong: Onboard the USS Makin Island, a next-generation assault ship, they don't like to call it the USS Prius. But, come on, it's a hybrid.
Operations chief Jeff Brotherton says there's gas, and there's "auxiliary electric."
Jeff Brotherton: I start the auxiliary propulsion motor, it will cause the gas turbine to stop.
It gets 33 percent better nautical mileage and saves at the pump.
Brotherton: When we took the ship from Pascalouga, Miss., to San Diego, we sailed around the southern tip of South America. Our savings was nearly $2 million in fuel costs.
It sips fuel at low speeds. Like when fighters take off from the deck, or amphibious landing craft emerge from the belly. The Navy wants this hybrid ship to be part of a future, greener fleet.
Why? Oil prices have sailors cussing like -- themselves. Retired general Chuck Wald.
Chuck Wald: Back in 2008 when oil peaked out at $147.50 a barrel, that was about $11 billion extra for the U.S. military.
Which in today's budget environment will be slimming down. Analyst Larry Korb is with the Center for American Progress.
Larry Korb: The Navy wants 313 ships, they can only afford 280 now. So maybe if they can save money on oil, they can buy more ships.
On the Makin Island, sailors talk up other onboard efficiencies: special filters turn sea water into fresh; recycling contests give winning squads first place in the chow line.
PSSR Wright: We got turkey burgers, we got baked beans, we got chicken patties.
Today's chef: PSSR Wright.
Wright: Spinach. And we got cake for dessert.
The serious part about saving oil is, the less the military buys, the less it funds unfriendly places. Still, it'll take decades to undo. So the real question lies with future Pentagon brass, and whether saving energy floats their boats as well.
In San Diego, I'm Scott Tong for Marketplace.
well, the navy has been funding the Polywell fusion reactor effort on the down-low for the last several years, and apparently the test units are performing almost exactly as per Dr. Bussard's predictions. they might very well be on track to net power in a few years. there is also the option of going with the tried-and-true molten salt reactor that was pioneered at Oak Ridge Labs in the 1950's and '60's... these have none of the weaknesses of the solid-core reactors traditionally used by navy ships and the energy industry - indeed the only reason why the world doesnt run molten-salt reactors today is because our weapons labs and the nuclear industry froze the MSR out politically.
You say this "hybrid" propulsion system is a new revolutionary design, but you just don't know your history. Two aircraft carriers built in the 1920's (the Lexington and Saratoga) had such a system. Some US navy nuclear submarines have used such systems, with the reactor providing the heat, and electric motors driving the propellor.
If the Navy really wants to buy less oil, it should either go back to sail, or forward to more nuclear power plants.
