Honeywell made 800,000 gallons of fuel for the Air Force's tests, though it doesn't aim to produce the fuels commercially. It plans to license the technique to refiners such as Valero Energy Corp. and Darling International Inc., which are building a $368 million plant in Louisiana, Rekoske said. While it'll be licensed to make bio-jet fuel, Bill Day, a Valero spokesman, said the focus will be on making ground transportation fuels.
The renewables effort extends to electricity. To make the Marines more "combat effective," they're pushing the use of solar power, energy-efficient lighting and batteries, said Colonel Bob Charette, director of the U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office.
Saving Marines
Renewable technologies including energy-efficient lighting, solar blankets and larger solar systems have been distributed to about half the Marines in Afghanistan. A patrol of as many as 20 Marines this year operated for three weeks using small solar blankets to re-charge their batteries, according to Charette.
"When you don't need as much re-supply for fuel, water, and batteries, you can stay out longer, do the mission at greater distances and you don't have your Marines at risk," he said. In Sangin district, there are two patrol bases operating on nothing but solar energy and battery packs, he said.
The Army is seeking a quarter of its domestic electricity from renewables by 2025, up from 2 percent now, said Jonathan Powers, director of outreach for the Energy Initiatives Task Force. The goal is equivalent to an extra 2.1 million megawatt- hours of renewable energy annually, and will require $7.1 billion of private investment, Powers said.
"The benefit for the private sector is we're committing to long-term power-purchase agreements for cost-effective large- scale renewable energy projects on our bases," Powers said. "We're providing land and demand."