US coast guard tests biofuel as part of Navy partnership

US coast guard buoy tender Henry Blake, based in Everett, Washington, completed its first trip powered in part by biofuel this month.

Officials say this represents the first Coast Guard ship to test biofuel after Henry Blake made its journey around local navigation aids on Puget Sound powered by a 50-50 blend of diesel and algae oil.

The Coast Guard has partnered with the US Navy to research algae-based biofuels for ships and the Navy is due to demonstrate its ‘Great Green Fleet’ at a military exercise in Hawaii on 29 June. It was the Navy that provided the fuel to the Coast Guard.

Chief of energy reliability at the Coast Guard’s office of energy management, Sam Alvord, was quoted as saying ‘We know these fuels are coming and, when they become available through the Defense Logistics Agency, we’ll be a consumer of them. The Henry Blake vessel was a good test ship as its engines rev high as it moves from buoy to buoy, but remains idle during any undertaken buoy maintenance’.

The Coast Guard says its tests will be a full evaluation that will last throughout the summer.