WASHINGTON NAVY YARD — Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced with much fanfare plans to deploy a “green” carrier strike group in 2016.
At the Naval Sea Systems Command, engineers who are responsible for bringing the plan to fruition are fleshing out the details, such as what ships and energy-saving technologies will take part in an East Coast exercise scheduled for the summer of 2012.
“We’re creating what we believe is a showcase for what’s possible,” said Rear Adm. James McManamon, deputy commander of surface warfare at the command.
The strike group demonstration will consist of an aircraft carrier along with three destroyers, including the USS Truxtun (DDG-103). The Navy next year plans to install on that ship a hybrid-electric drive prototype that is being developed at a land-based test facility in Philadelphia. The intent is to determine if electric propulsion systems are suitable for the destroyer force, said Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe, director of the surface warfare division, in an interview at the Pentagon.
The selected destroyers will have stern flaps, said McManamon. Attached to the aft of the vessels, the flap helps ships propel through the water with less energy. The technology has been installed on a variety of ship classes, including amphibious landing dock ships. Navy officials say the flaps so far have yielded fuel cost savings of $365,000 to $450,000 per ship.
Aboard the carrier, fighter jets will be flying on camelina-based biofuels. The first green F/A-18 Super Hornet took flight in April powered by a 50-50 blend of conventional JP-5 jet fuel and biofuel.
There is a possibility that the destroyers’ diesel engines also will on biofuels. “We may not be able to run an entire ship on biofuels, but we may be able to modify a tank so when they are steaming on two diesels, they are steaming on biofuel,” said McManamon.
The Navy wants to switch out the ships’ incandescent lights with LED lights that will rarely need to be replaced. “They’re 30 percent more expensive to buy, but they have payback in two to three years in terms of the environment and sailor workload,” said McManamon, a former commanding officer of the USS Milius (DDG-69). Replacing incandescent lights aboard a ship is a labor-intensive process that requires stowage of the spent bulbs as hazardous waste, he said.
Another option on the table is replacing equipment and pumps with systems that run on propane gas to reduce the ships’ carbon footprint. “Propane may not be perfect, but it’s a green technology,” said McManamon, who added that he visited a plant in California to look at available products.
NAVSEA engineers are evaluating solar panels that could be mounted in the shipboard environment, along with gas turbine and diesel engine improvements, hull and propeller coatings and superconductor degaussing technologies.
Another goal is to reduce stack emissions. The Navy has always had an interest in eliminating ships’ heat signatures to reduce the enemy’s ability to detect them, said McManamon. But reducing the exhaust for environmental reasons is becoming a higher priority also because there are places in the world where carbon dioxide emissions are restricted. Commercial technologies that scrub carbon dioxide from catalytic converters also are potential options.
“Those are the kind of technologies we want to show,” said McManamon. “If I’m getting good payback, then I can program them for the future, which would be in that 2016 timeframe.”
Ideally, the Navy would retrofit ships with green technologies during three-week spans when the selected ships are in port for maintenance, he said.
Eventually, the Navy may schedule dedicated shipyard time for green projects, he said. “I’ll use green money to fund some of the ship modifications that we’ll need as we go forward.”