Navy's Great Green Fleet.

(G. Pew, AvWeb, 5/11/12) The U.S. Navy's participation in a 22-nation exercise this summer will include a two-day demonstration of the "Great Green Fleet" carrier strike group, operating in part on alternative non-fossil fuels. The demonstration group will operate aircraft and non-carrier ships on 50/50 blends of biofuel and conventional fuels. The Navy has set a goal of 2020 to meet half of its energy needs with non-fossil fuels. The Great Green Fleet's two-day demonstration during the Rim of Pacific exercise is meant to precipitate a larger months-long deployment of a similarly-fueled group set to deploy in 2016. Increases in fuel costs have pushed Defense Department spending $3 billion over budget in 2012 due to rising fuel costs...

Senate blocks biofuel development in draft defense bill.

(C.Munoz, 05/25/12, TheHill.com) The Pentagon will have to work a little harder if it wants to eventually run its tanks, ships and planes on something other than fossil fuels, thanks to defense lawmakers in the Senate. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee effectively banned the department from buying alternative fuels or building facilities to manufacture it. Those measures were rolled into the committee's draft of the fiscal 2013 defense budget bill approved on Thursday. Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he hopes to have the bill brought to the full Senate no later than July...

Engineer Says ICAO Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions Will Mask Output.

Bloomberg News (6/28, Carr) reports, "A metric proposed as part of the International Civil Aviation Organization's plan to curb greenhouse gases in the airline industry will mask the actual emissions of aircraft, according to an aeronautical engineer." Dimitri Simos, the founder of an English airline-engineering software company known as Lissys Ltd., said that "the proposal uses a plane's maximum take-off weight, a certification level known as MTOW, to help determine emissions and whether the aircraft is efficient enough to fly." Simos adds, "Using MTOW as a weight determinant of CO2 is scientifically, and surely also legally under any rational system, utterly indefensible."