With Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on hand for the occasion, the biofuel-powered ships of the new “Great Green Fleet” left San Diego Bay on Wednesday for a Pacific Ocean deployment.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and San Diego Congressional Representatives Susan Davis and Scott Peters joined Mabus in Coronado as the carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered USS John C. Stennis left with biofuel-powered support ships, including the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay and the guided-missile destroyers USS Stockdale and USS William P. Lawrence.
The Great Green Fleet is a Navy initiative to use alternative energy sources to increase combat capability and operational flexibility. The advanced fuel blend was produced by California-based AltAir Fuels from a feedstock of beef tallow — waste beef fat — provided by Midwest farmers and ranchers, and traditional petroleum provided by Tesoro.
“When it comes to power, my focus has been about one thing and one thing only: better warfighting,” said Mabus. “The Great Green Fleet shows how we are transforming our energy use to make us better warfighters, to go farther, stay longer and deliver more firepower. In short, to enable us to provide the global presence that is our mission.”
“The Navy’s use of renewable energy in the Great Green Fleet represents its ability to diversify its energy sources, and also our nation’s ability to take what would be a waste product and create homegrown, clean, advanced biofuels to support a variety of transportation needs,” said Vilsack.
Mabus chose the name Great Green Fleet to honor President Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, which helped usher in America as a global power on the world stage at the beginning of the 20th Century
