Navy’s Green Laundry Initiative Weakened a $15 Billion Carrier
13th April 2026
The $15 billion USS Ford was forced to cut short its deployment due to a 30-hour laundry fire that did millions of dollars in damage. And it has been revealed that even while it remained on station in the Gulf, Ford could not generate combat sorties for two days due to the raging 30-hour laundry fire that drove some 600 sailors out of their sleeping quarters. Thirty hours to get a laundry fire under control raises a couple of questions. Why would a laundry catch on fire, and why did it take the firefighters and damage-control personnel of the USS Ford so long to put out the laundry fire? Sadly, the answers can be found in some wrongheaded decisions the Navy made in its effort to be viewed as being “green.”
Design for the Ford-class carrier began in March 1996, and finally, more than $15 billion later, the USS Ford was fully certified for combat in April 2023. Due to a misguided green initiative, instead of installing inherently super energy-efficient steam-based laundries, the Ford-class carriers have standardized on more expensive, more complex, inherently fire-prone, ozone-based systems.