THE US Navy has given new meaning to the term "flower power".
The navy is currently trialling a biofuel blend in its sophisticated FA-18 Super Hornet fighter jet.
- TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
- Have Your Say in the form below
The blend is half standard jet propellant fuel and half biofuel made from camelina, a flowering plant in the Brassica family, which includes canola, mustard and cauliflower.
Camelina has been grown in Europe and Central Asia as an oilseed crop for more than 3000 years.
It is also known as gold-of-pleasure, false flax, wild flax, German sesame and Siberian oilseed.
US company Sustainable Oils won a contract last September to supply a camelina-based jet biofuel to the US Navy.
Sustainable Oils settled on camelina as a biofuel crop because it was not a food crop and worked well in rotation with wheat.
A number of farmers in Montana supply the oilseed to Sustainable Oils.
The US Navy is the largest diesel user in the world, but hopes to source half its energy needs as alternative fuels by 2020.
The US Navy plans to start using biodiesel in part of its naval fleet by 2016.
According to Biomass Magazine, the US Air Force is also trialling camelina in an A-10 Thunderbolt II jet and plans to source half its domestic aviation fuel as alternative fuels within six years.
