Chris Tindal, director for operational energy for the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, will discuss the Navy’s initiative to “sail the green fleet” at a 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, talk at the Performing Arts Center at South Dakota State University. Admission is free.

His talk is sponsored by the North Central Regional Sun Grant Center at SDSU, directed by Jim Doolittle.

Tindal said the Navy wants to reduce petroleum use in its commercial fleet by 50 percent by 2015. By 2020, the Navy wants 50 percent of its total energy consumption to come from alternative sources.

The challenge for fuel developers is that the alternative must be invisible to the operator, meaning that it:

•Meets fuel performance requirements,

•Can be mixed or alternated with petroleum fuel, and

•Requires no change to the aircraft or ship, or the delivery system infrastructure.

University researchers are now in the second year of what is proposed as a four-year, $16-million effort to convert feedstocks into alternative jet fuel in a cost-effective way.

Doolittle is project director for the study, which involves three principal investigators from three SDSU colleges — Engineering, Agriculture and Biological Sciences and Arts and Sciences.