When the Navy rolled out its "Great Green Fleet" test during the Rim of the Pacific war games completed just last week, the project underscored the controversy about the expensive use of biofuel to eventually end dependence on foreign fossil fuel at both the federal and state levels.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the experience of Navy ships and planes during RIMPAC — using 900,000 gallons of the 50/50 biofuel and petroleum-based marine diesel or aviation fuel blend — "shows that we can reduce the vulnerability that we currently have because of our dependence on foreign sources of oil."

But self-sufficiency comes at a high price — at least for now. The Navy spends less than $4 per gallon for traditional marine and jet fuel. In the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., earlier this year said buying biofuel at $26 per gallon, totaling nearly $12 million — the amount the Navy spent for 450,000 gallons of biofuels for the Rim of the Pacific demonstration — conflicts with priorities of pursuing energy technology that reduces fuel demand and saves lives.

Nevertheless, this alternative-energy initiative retains powerful champions: for one, Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee chairman, who said on Tuesday that "we do have funding" for the Navy’s biofuels program.

As for biofuels’ future in Hawaii, the only state that depends on shipped oil for electricity as well as gasoline: Hawaiian Electric Co. is enthusiastic about the use of biofuels in reducing that dependence, but not in the way other proponents of clean energy envision substitution of oil derivatives.

HECO is charging ahead with biodiesel to replace or add to oil in its power plants to generate electricity, a source of energy for today’s new cars. Others propose that substances made from decomposed plants and animals be fed directly into airplane and ground vehicle engines.

"We think that the much more reasonable future for ground transportation is in electric vehicles rather than in trying to convert the American automobile fleet from gasoline to diesel so that biodiesel could be used in those cars," said Peter Rosegg, HECO’s spokesman on the subject.

However, the use described by Rosegg essentially consists of providing electricity to recharge the batteries of electric cars during periods, such as overnight, when other sources of electricity may be unreliable.

Jeff Mikulina, executive director of Blue Planet Foundation, said use of biofuel in that fashion would get in the way of the long-term effort to replace oil as Hawaii’s major source of electricity with wind, hydro, solar and geothermal energy.

"Having a policy preference for biofuel produced in Hawaii," Mikulina said, "the first use should be transportation and, if there are leftover products, use that for electricity. If a utility gobbles up that supply, we’re going to be up a creek for the transportation side."

Mikulina added that a state policy to clarify a "preference for biofuels would help prevent solving one energy problem at the expense of another.

"That actually has been our position. We support that concept," said Mark Glick, director of the state Energy Office.

However, he suggested HECO’s contracts for biofuel that now is used to produce electricity at its plants may evolve into future use of biofuel for direct use in cars and trucks.

"There ought to be something other than power production but, for the near term, for now, it is a way to secure local production (of biofuel). I think Blue Planet’s suggestion is a great long-term strategy," Glilck said. "We really advocate moving away from power generation as the focus for biofuels."

THE PENTAGON is looking to biofuel as a direct fuel for transportation to reduce dependence on foreign oil. However, direct use of biofuel for military transportation is being resisted in Congress. The House voted 326-90 last month to cut $70 million requested by the Obama administration for domestic development of biofuels production for use in submarines and Navy destroyers. Just Thursday in the Senate, though, Inouye’s Appropriations Defense subcommittee approved legislation to continue the Pentagon’s use of biofuels.

The Pentagon cites a policy in the 1880s to encourage domestic production of steel in order to end dependence on foreign imports, although it paid triple the market rate. By the eve of World War I, the U.S. was the world’s top steel producer so was not dependent on Europe for basic war materials.

A $6 million federal grant was announced last week to the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources to research the usefulness of fast-growing tropical grasses for transportation needs, especially for national defense.

UH professor Andrew Hashimoto, the principal researcher, said biofuels have a potential of supplying from 25 percent to 60 percent of the fuel supply for aviation and possibly as much for ground transportation, for both the military and Hawaii.

"Collaboration is key," Hashimoto said, "as we all bring our diverse strengths to the table for this subject of importance to Hawaii, the nation and the Asia-Pacific region."

HECO completed construction two years ago of the 110-megawatt Campbell Industrial Park Generating Station, touted as the world’s largest commercial generator fueled entirely by biodiesel. The biodiesel is processed from cooking oil and waste animal fat from slaughter houses by an Iowa company.

The electric company pays more than what oil costs, Rosegg said, "but as we watch the prices of petroleum diesel, we don’t know exactly when the lines will cross, but in the longer term we think biodiesel is probably already just about competitive, depending on where the prices of diesel on any given day of the week, but it will become increasingly competitive."

The venture is important for Hawaii, Rosegg added, because of a "near-term goal" of using only local biofuel in the plant, "and that keeps the money at home, it avoids paying these huge shipping charges and all the rest." HECO has signed three local contracts and expects to be signing more.

And just Thursday, Hawaiian Electric Light Co., a HECO subsidiary, asked the Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its rejection last year of a surcharge of Oahu and Maui customers for the expense of using biofuel to feed a power plant on Hawaii island. The proposed 20-year contract is with Aina Koa Pono, a new company that would convert a variety of plants and crops into a liquid fuel to replace fossil fuel at HELCO’s power plant near Kailua-Kona.

State regulators had rejected HECO’s proposed surcharge toward buying 16 million gallons a year of the biofuel. The company now says the surcharge would not begin until the biofuel is delivered to the plant, and it would "decrease over time as petroleum-diesel prices rise."

The electric company also is under a 20-year agreement with Maui Land & Pineapple Co., Grove Farm Co. and Kamehameha Schools to use biofuel crops from Kauai land to burn at HECO’s Kahe power plant along Oahu’s Farrington Highway. The price for the biofuel goes up "a tiny bit for inflation" over the length of the contract, Rosegg said, adding, "We know we can get that product at a fixed price for the next 20 years. Now, if you could do that with oil, you would be a very rich man."

MIKULINA scoffs at what HECO regards as planning for the future.

"They just put in a different fuel," he said. "We would much prefer them to do the more complex, but — we think in the long term — more affordable approach of using more solar and wind and starting to shut down the power plant."

Mikulina pointed out that two-thirds of Hawaii’s imported oil goes to transportation and the remainder to electricity.

"That one-third for electricity we have other solutions for — wind, solar, geothermal, waves — but for the transportation side, we really have to have a liquid fuel — jet fuel, diesel, gasoline," he said.

"The ideal biofuel project would not be too dissimilar from a regular refinery," Mikulina added, "where you put in crude oil and you get out gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and the stuff that the utility burns. A project that would produce all those products would be ideal, but when they start designing only to produce biodiesel, only for use in the power plant, then I think there’s an opportunity cost in doing that."