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Navy Tests Camelina Biodiesel

On Thursday the U.S. Navy took a test flight at the Patuxent Naval Station in Maryland using camelina-based biodiesel. Scott Johnson, president of the Montana-based company Sustainable Oils, which provided the camelina biodiesel to the Navy, says the flight in an F18 that has been dubbed the "Green Phantom" because it was flying on biofuels was very successful..

"Fifty percent of the fuel on board was camelina-based HRJ5, which is the Navy's jet fuel that we produced under contract for them," Johnson said. "Everything went very well; they go up to Mach 1.2."

Johnson says the pilots later told the Secretary of the Navy that they couldn't tell any difference between the Camelina mixture and regular jet fuel. The test was part of the Navy's initiative on energy security and renewable energy.