Military to test-fly biofuel jet as part of overall energy shift

While deliberations grind on in Congress about how to shift the nation's energy away from fossil fuels, the Defense Department is putting plans into action with such things as electric-drive ships that save fuel costs, solar-based water purification in Afghanistan that reduces the need for dangerous convoys, and solar and geothermal power at U.S. bases.

The changes eventually could spread to civilian life. The size of the military's investment will create economies of scale that help bring down the costs of renewable energy, and military innovations in energy technologies could spread to civilian uses, just as the Internet did.

The Navy has changed energy sources before - from sailing to coal in the 1850s, from coal to oil in the early 20th century and to nuclear power in the 1950s.

Some people always warned against abandoning proven technologies for more costly ones, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said.

"Every single time they were wrong," he said.

A report released Tuesday from a team of energy and security experts assembled by the Pew Charitable Trusts takes a broad look at what the military has done so far to move off fossil fuels. Some examples:

• The Army plans to have 4,000 electric vehicles in the next three years, one of the biggest electric fleets in the world.

• The Air Force plans to provide 25 percent of the energy at its bases with renewable energy by 2025 and use biofuels blends for half its aviation fuel by 2016.

• The Navy plans to launch a strike group by 2016 that runs entirely on non-fossil-fuel energy.

The Super Hornet is Navy aviation's largest energy user.

It's being put through a series of tests, including the one planned on Thursday at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland.

The Navy is using an aviation biofuel made from the camelina sativa plant, a non-food plant in the mustard family.