Green Water: Can the U.S. Navy Win the Eco-Arms Race?
by Ray Mabus (Foreign Policy) With domestic oil production up, imports declining, and new oil and gas reserves being discovered, some question whether energy remains, or ever was, a security challenge and military vulnerability for the United States. The rise in oil prices back over $100 per barrel in the wake of Egypt’s political turmoil provides a sobering answer.
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Fossil fuels, chiefly oil, account for approximately 80 percent of the world’s primary energy, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Oil is the ultimate global commodity, often trading on speculation and rumor because of this lack of competition. Supply shocks, like those in the 1970s, have been relatively infrequent, but remain a concern for many nations. Price shocks occur too often. Pronouncements by hardliners in oil-producing states, national or transnational instability, as we’ve seen across North Africa and the Middle East, or threats to close vital maritime choke points or disrupt supplies in any way can cause major price swings.
Even as new discoveries and new technologies increase supply, demand is increasing even more.
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As the world’s largest fossil fuel consumer, the U.S. military sees oil price volatility having an outsized impact on its budget. …
Cutbacks in ships, planes, and other procurement come next. At some point, it makes no sense to build platforms for which we cannot afford fuel. That not only impacts military effectiveness, it hurts our economy as well.
The Navy’s recent energy investments do not come, as some critics suggest, at the expense of building ships or training sailors. Just the opposite: They are producing savings to help build and operate those ships and planes and prepare sailors and Marines to defend our nation by flattening our energy budget and easing the taxpayers’ burden.
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…This year’s attack and hostage crisis at the natural gas facility in southern Algeria again spotlighted the potential for havoc in countries heavily dependent on oil and gas for their economies. …
Dependence for their energy needs on states less sympathetic to U.S. interests also increases the possibility for shifting allegiances around the globe, even among our allies.
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As with its leadership in energy innovation, the Navy also has a history of partnering with private industry to promote business sectors and products important to our nation’s military and economic security. In the 1890s, when it was building its first four steel ships, the Navy paid nearly double the going price of cheaper European steel to support domestic steelmakers. Our government’s belief that it was unacceptable to rely on foreign steel for our warships helped boost American steel to lead the world, driving our rise in the 20th century as an industrial, military, and political power.
This is not the first such alternative fuel partnership. Responding to Nazi efforts to create synthetic fuel, Congress passed in 1944 the Liquid Synthetic Fuels Act, authorizing $30 million (nearly $392 million in 2012 dollars) to build synthetic fuel demonstration plants. The United States paid $58 per barrel for that fuel, far above the petroleum market price at the time. Over the next decade, the government invested $87 million ($750 million in 2012 dollars) in alternative fuel. READ MORE
