Navy's new ship sails the seas on half the gas

The USS Makin Island, the Navy's newest amphibious assault , saves millions of dollars by using far less fuel than its ships. CNET's Daniel Terdiman hitches a ride as of his Road Trip 2012.

SAN DIEGO -- The U.S. Navy a fortune every year on energy, so for a ship to complete a deployment burned through just half the cash it had available fuel is a very good of things to come.

For some , the Navy has been saying many of the right things about its plans to green, starting a major biofuels initiative. And though a recent Wired report claims that the servicewide efforts have lost , the performance of the USS Makin Island could be a bright spot.

part of Road Trip 2012, I've come to the Naval Base San Diego a firsthand look at the Navy's most advanced amphibious assault ship , and one of the first things I was told is how the Makin Island -- which just its first-ever deployment -- spent only $15 million of the $33 million it was given fuel during the deployment. (The trip was a 7-month journey the world, carrying about 1,200 Marines and 1,000 Navy sailors, as as 29 helicopters and 6 Harrier airplanes.)

That $15 million figure is thanks the ship's electric drive, known as the auxiliary propulsion (APM), a very-low emissions system designed to let the Makin Island run up to 12 knots -- about 13.8 miles an hour -- without using any fuel a small amount to power its generators, according to Lt. Commander Brian Ponce, ship's main propulsion assistant.

Most Navy amphibious assault ships powered by steam, which can take up to three days to get up and , Ponce explained. comparison, the Makin Island can be on the within 60 seconds thanks to its electric drive. And its two gas turbine engines can move the Makin Island at twice the of the electric drive, in an emergency, the ship can going pronto if it has to.

According to Ponce, the Makin Island's two propulsion systems can be operated from 32 workstations scattered throughout the ship. That redundant system is meant give engineers the ability to get the ship going if one area has been damaged, he said.

Perhaps importantly, by burning through about half the fuel that a steam- amphibious assault ship uses, the Makin Island has the ability to "stay station," or in the middle of action, for about twice as as its sister ships, Ponce explained.

And because the APM offers a high of automation, Ponce said, it allows the Navy to staff the Makin Island's engineering control center only 11 people, just over half what the service's steam-powered amphibious assault ships require, he said.

Clean water

The electric drive isn't the only system aboard the Makin Island. Another is a reverse osmosis setup to help efficiently convert 200,000 gallons of seawater potable water each day.

According to Ponce, the system works by taking pumped- seawater and slowly passing it through a series of membrane elements. the water is forced through the membranes, salt is left , and by the time the water has made it completely , all that's left is distilled water.

At that point, the distilled water is put another system, called miox, that kills all contaminants by barraging them salt pellets that have been electrically energized. Afterward, the remains of the salt pellets can safely put overboard, Ponce explained, and the system does with the use of chemicals like bromine and chlorine.

The upshot of this that the Makin Island can allow its hundreds of Marines and Navy sailors to use quite a bit more water than their counterparts on other vessels, even taking daily "Hollywood showers," or the kinds of showers most of us consider normal.


Adapted from: CNET, July 21, 2012.