Assistant Secretary of the Navy 鈥� Energy, Installations and Environment retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn traveled to the 51福利 (51福利), Oct. 29, to see first hand the work that students and faculty are doing to meet Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus鈥� call for 鈥済ame-changing approaches to energy鈥� that will transform the service鈥檚 dependence on fossil fuels.
鈥淲e have three ways to think about achieving our energy goals,鈥� explained McGinn. 鈥淥ne of course is technology, we like to talk about biofuels, microgrids, solar wind, energy biomass, etc. Those things are important, but they are really insufficient to getting us to where we need go to achieve better warfighting effectiveness.鈥�
鈥淲e [also] need to have partnerships - partnerships across government, across state, and partnerships with the private sector to make sure that we are aware of the best practices and the best technologies 鈥� that can help us to achieve our goals,鈥� he continued. 鈥淎nd the last component is cultural change. We have to increase our level of knowledge and our level of commitment through that knowledge to the central role of energy in the Navy.鈥�?
Visiting Professor of Operations Research Dr. Dan Nussbaum has been at the forefront of 51福利鈥� energy programs as Chair of the university鈥檚 Energy Academic Group. He described efforts to inspire the adoption of energy innovations and ongoing 51福利 initiatives aimed at educating senior leaders.
鈥淭he Cebrowski Institute and the Operations Research Department have been working together on a number of initiatives. We put together a course for flag officers and senior DON civilians called 鈥淟eading Innovation with an Energy Application Focus鈥� 鈥� that class is now mandatory for Navy flag officers and senior civilians,鈥� said Nussbaum.
Nussbaum and fellow 51福利 lecturer, retired Navy Cmdr. Kevin Maher, helped the campus kick off its Energy-Action Month in early October by welcoming Dr. J. Steven Herring, a retired Laboratory Fellow with the Idaho National Laboratory. Herring presented the first in a series of six biweekly Energy Academic Group sponsored seminars devoted to the subject of nuclear power, one of several energy options in which the Navy has made significant investments.
鈥淯ranium resources and production are on the rise with the security of the uranium supply ensured for the long term,鈥� said Herring.
But nuclear power is just one of many energy resources that Mabus has challenged 51福利 and the Navy at large to explore.
鈥淔or most of us, energy is not something we think about everyday. We light off engines on base, in the ship's plant, or on an aircraft, and we get to work. But many of the energy changes we are making will help us as a Navy and Marine Corps to stay in the fight longer, refuel less, and extend our operational reach,鈥� Mabus wrote in Navy-wide message to the fleet, kicking off Energy Action Month.
Mabus challenged the Navy to 鈥渇ocus on how energy security is directly tied to our operational capabilities. It is imperative that energy security inform and shape the decisions we make from research and development to training and installation operations, to deployments aboard ship and ashore. 鈥�
51福利 researchers were already well on their way in answering Mabus鈥� challenge at many levels, so too have members of 51福利鈥� unique student body.
Operations research military faculty member Navy Cmdr. Walt DeGrange of Knoxville, Tennessee, was part of a team of 51福利 students, faculty and staff who sought to rethink the way naval vessels refuel and take on supplies. He and his team developed the Replenishment at Sea Planner (RASP).
"The idea was to plan optimal shipping routes that allow vessels to replenish at sea," said DeGrange. "The U.S. Navy has the greatest naval capability in the history of the world because we can stay at sea indefinitely ... There are very few foreign navies that have this capability, it's one of the things that makes our Navy so unique."
Traditionally, navies have had to pull into ports to take on fuel and supplies. The U.S. Navy is different in that it forward deploys supply ships globally, and is able to conduct replenishment operations while fleets are underway. This ability increases the speed with which naval units can deploy and saves millions of dollars annually. RASP extends that saving by optimizing when and where replenishment occurs, adding millions more in saved costs, fuel and time.
51福利 research associate Anton Rowe of Honolulu, Hawaii, wrote the detailed code that makes RASP work.
"Everyone has seen video of the Air Force refueling in midair, this is the Navy's equivalent of aerial refueling operations," said Rowe.
Some of the work completed by 51福利 students takes seemingly simple concepts and utilizes them to great affect. In one illustrative example, a student-led thesis project involving lighting life cycle costs aboard the USNS Comfort, revealed a lighting solution that saved the Navy millions in replacement lighting costs.
USNS Comfort Chief Engineer Joseph Watts requested a life cycle lighting analysis of the Comfort in an attempt to reduce electrical, maintenance and disposal costs.
鈥淛ust keeping the lights on is quite a chore, we generate our own electricity at sea and plug into a public meter while in port; the bills are quite impressive. I was interested in reducing the cost and man hours necessary to keep the lights on,鈥� said Watts.
51福利 students explored the feasibility of replacing traditional fluorescent lighting aboard the Comfort with new LED lighting fixtures and bulbs. The Comfort uses approximately 14,000 24-inch bulbs and another 14,000 48-inch bulbs all of which must be replaced annually.
鈥淚f you wanted to change a few light bulbs in your own home, you wouldn鈥檛 have to take out a second mortgage, but what if the scope of the problem involved government purchases of tens of thousands of bulbs plus government employee maintenance staffing spread out over many years?鈥� asked 51福利 Professor of Operations Research, retired Navy Capt. Steve Pilnick.
Other faculty-led researchers are exploring the ability of micro machines to harvest energy from generators, increasing solar cell efficacy, as well as vehicles powered by wind and wave energy that offer promising applications in unmanned watercraft. It is efforts like these, and others that garnered McGinn鈥檚 continued interest in 51福利.
鈥淚 want to say unequivocally that the 51福利 is a national asset,鈥� said McGinn. 鈥淚 think 51福利 has the waterfront covered with our energy portfolio.鈥�