NavSea official: Consider fuel costs

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NavSea official: Consider fuel costs
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 15, 2008 16:45:58 EST

Designing a new generation of warship power plants is a “difficult challenge” for today’s designers, but it’s critical for tomorrow’s weapons, sensors and the world’s dwindling supply of oil, a top Navy engineer said Monday.

The technical problem is formidable, conceded Rear Adm. Thomas Eccles, the deputy commander for ship design, integration and engineering at Naval Sea Systems command. A future power plant ideally would use the same or less fuel as today’s, and yet produce much more electric power to feed hungry new radars, electromagnetic rail guns and even shipboard lasers.

But the Navy can’t just keep ordering bigger and bigger engines, Eccles said. It has to design entirely new systems — as it keeps an eye on fuel use and costs — that will stay in the fleet for decades. As part of that, planners should consider fuel costs and use in shipbuilding projects, Eccles said, and look clearly at what the Navy gains and loses with its newer warships.

He cited the littoral combat ship, which was designed with a top speed of more than 40 knots, but which also uses a lot of fuel. Navy planners should have asked whether the ship needs to be so fast, he said, given the quantity of fuel that the planned fleet of 55 LCSs will consume.

“The value of the speed is high, because I need it to go places we couldn’t normally go as rapidly and flexibly, and there’s really some value in that, and maybe that’s the price we want to pay. But I don’t think that there was a fully informed decision process arrived at in the development of LCS, in which somebody answered the question the way we might go after it today,” Eccles said.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_ASNE_fuel_121508w/%2e