A US Navy oiler slipped away from a fuel depot on the Puget Sound in Washington state last week, headed toward the central Pacific and into the storm over the Pentagon's controversial green fuels initiative. In its tanks, the USNS Henry J Kaiser carried nearly 900,000 gallons of biofuel blended with petroleum to power the cruisers, destroyers and fighter jets of what the Navy has taken to calling the "great green fleet," the first carrier strike group to be powered largely by alternative fuels. Conventionally powered ships and aircraft in the strike group will burn the blend in an operational setting for the first time this month during the 20-nation Rim of the Pacific exercise, the largest annual international maritime warfare manoeuvres. The six-week exercise began on Friday. The Pentagon hopes it can prove the Navy looks as impressive burning fuel squeezed from seeds, algae and chicken fat as it does using petroleum.
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